Town hall redevelopment, community centre improvements, footbridge and other council updates

GREENVILLE, SC (FOX Carolina) – The Greenville City Council voted on several items, including long-awaited community center improvements and the fate of the current city hall.

The town hall will be demolished

It’s been more than a year since the city council discussed selling City Hall to developers. original plans were cancelled and leaders are moving forward with another option.

By the end of 2025, the current town hall could be just a memory. The council has voted for a deal with M Peters Group to redevelop the former relic.

“We’re not the city of the 1970s, and we’ve been thinking about building a new city hall, renovating this building, moving it or something else for a while now, and we’ve finally made our decision,” Mayor Knox White said.

The decision was made to demolish the city hall and build a new building from scratch in a public-private partnership with M Peters Group. The first 5 floors will house the city council chambers and other administrative offices. The remaining floors will be for restaurants, offices or residential use.

Mayor White said the city will invest about $10 million and developers M Peters Group will invest much more.

“We’re approaching this in a very creative way, and we’re doing it so we can build what we can afford,” City Manager Shannon Lavrin said.

The city initially agreed to sell the property to the M Peters Group, which was set to move the property into an office building next to the Grand Bohemian Hotel.

“That didn’t work because of the parking issues and the ownership of the building being very mixed up, so it wasn’t going to work for us. So we went back to where the city government has been for about 80 years,” White said.

Mayor White says the project will take three years to complete after demolition, with council meetings likely to return to the convention center during construction.

$1 million for community centers

Of the $1 million share from the state, $550,000 will go to the Nicholtown center and the remainder will go to the West Greenville center.

The city first shared plans for the Nicholtown center last year, and no significant development has been seen since the late ’70s. West Greenville is in a similar situation.

“The new community center will be a safe and welcoming space for people of all ages to come together, learn and participate in a variety of activities. It will undoubtedly be the cornerstone of our community that it once was,” said West Greenville resident and community leader Inez Morris.

The city will discuss what kinds of improvements are needed there when it begins updating the neighborhood master plan in the next few months.

Pedestrian Improvements

The city received just over $4 million from SCDOT to fund public infrastructure projects. Council members voted to spend $2.5 million to build a pedestrian bridge over Verdae Boulevard.

There will be a Swamp Rabbit Trail connector that the city says will eventually allow them to bring the trail to Mauldin. The project is not very far along yet; they are still in the design phase.

Another $2.5 million will go toward street improvements on East North Avenue in downtown.

“What we want to do is make it much more pedestrian friendly and much safer. We always get thousands of people going to shows at Bon Secours Arena, but the sidewalks are very narrow and difficult to cross, so this is something we would do traditionally — wider sidewalks, trees, landscaping, more of a connection to downtown Greenville across Church Street,” Mayor White explained.

White says these improvements will add to the Gateway apartment building, which will also include restaurants and retail space.

Haynie-Sirrine Master Plan approved

Finally, the council unanimously adopted the updated Haynie-Sirrine Neighborhood Master Plan.

The plan is expected to drive growth and new development in the neighborhood over the next few years. Learn more Click here.