Plans for Gracie Plaza at the Arena District, the long-awaited mixed-use development on Greenville’s Gateway corridor, have undergone a major redesign.
In June 2023, the city of Greenville’s Design Review Board approved the original designs for the development which will sit on the old Greenville Memorial Auditorium site at 250 N. Church St. Miami-based NR Investments worked with Greenville’s Johnston Design Group to design the development.
Rising costs for the project led developers to alter the designs for Gracie Plaza. The updated site plans were unveiled at the city’s project preview meeting Feb. 27. Instead of two interconnected towers, the development will now feature a single, 25-story tower.
“By virtue of going from a pair of towers to a single tower, the building overall is going to have significantly more presence as a gateway into downtown Greenville,” said Scott Johnston, founder of Johnston Design Group.
Previous designs included a central public plaza anchoring the project’s two towers. With the updated plan, this plaza will be shifted to the side of the building to face North Church Street. Johnston said one of the main goals for the redesign was to bring the plaza down to street level to increase the available restaurant and commercial space.
The tower will include 12,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, 342 apartments, a pool deck, an outdoor amenities terrace and more. The building’s parking deck will now be above ground and include 363 parking spaces.
The new site plans are tentatively scheduled to be reviewed by the Design Review Board April 18.
Architectural details, color, materials and more for the Gracie Plaza project will follow later in the design process. If the site plan is approved, the developers will then submit the project’s architectural designs for the board to review. If everything goes as scheduled, these plans could potentially go before the board in August 2024.
Jeremy Pino, senior director at the project’s financing partner Walker & Dunlop, said construction for the project is hoped begin in the first quarter of 2025.
“Once we get that approval on the exterior, we will start with the permitting process. That’s going to take time,” Pino said.
By the numbers
- Total gross construction area: 607,773 square feet
- Residential: 407,565 square feet
- Commercial: 12,000 square feet
- Amenity/pool deck: 33,806 square feet
- Parking/service: 154,402 square feet
