How the Upstate real estate development company is building for tomorrow
“We’re probably the quietest big company in Greenville,” says Zach Romano, director of strategy and investments for RealtyLink. “We were founded right here in the Upstate by locals in 1998 and have since developed over 600 projects across the country.”
If you’ve seen the state-of-the-art Top Golf rising above interstate near Pelham road, you’ve seen their work. The real estate development company has built its brand on a diverse portfolio — from grocery-anchored shopping centers and power retail centers to single tenant build-to-suit, multifamily, industrial, self-storage and mixed-use properties.
“When it comes to taking care of business, our founders have always done things the old-fashioned way: treating clients well and organically growing the business through relationships and repeat customers,” says Romano.
Greenville may be headquarters, but the company has regional offices all across the Eastern U.S., where the team gleans direct knowledge of each individual market and secures deals.
“We’re ground-up developers,” says Romano. “Typically, we’ll acquire the land, bring in the tenants and the right contractors and collaborate with the right capital partners — like Fifth Third Bank — to do it all. We’re very full-service, from front to back end.”
The company is in a unique growth phase, expanding across four divisions, including residential and retail.
“We’re adding hundreds of millions of dollars a year in terms of development assets,” says Romano, “and joining hand-in-hand with private high-net-worth investors and institutional capital, as well as our bankers, to ensure we’re well-capitalized. A lot of that growth will directly benefit the Upstate, as well as Charleston, even down to Savannah.”
Amidst all of that growth, company culture remains the foundation that RealtyLink is centered on.
“We’re big on family culture here,” says Romano. “And that plays into a lot the business that we take on. [It also informs] how we take care of our resources, meaning both our assets and our people — our biggest resource is our team members. Culturally, that is super important for us and something that we focus on in our every day operations.”
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