In a captivating session titled “Reimagining Greenville’s Gateway: A Community-initiated Plan,” urban design firm Plusurbia took center stage at the South Carolina APA Fall Conference. The event, held at the Westin Hilton Head Island Resort & Spa, featured Plusurbia’s Juan Mullerat and Dylan Gehring, alongside key collaborators: Greenville’s City Manager, Shannon Lavrin, and local business owner and stakeholder Robert Donovan.
The focal point of the session was the groundbreaking 2022 project, the “East Gateway District,” a transformative initiative aimed at revitalizing Greenville’s Gateway Area. The Community Vision Plan, presented by the Plusurbia team, emerged as a strategic blueprint that embraces the neighborhood’s unique assets while implementing innovative strategies to seamlessly reconnect the built environment with the adjacent downtown.
Revitalization began with the City’s downtown, and in the decades since, has grown outward from there in every direction; that is, except for the Gateway Area. Instead, Greenville’s most popular entrance, seeing 54,000 vehicles move through it daily, has continued to be defined by a series of disconnected development patterns, and includes a National Register-listed Historic Neighborhood, the City’s Arena, and the County’s Law Enforcement Center.
Out of this, grew a community movement to plan for the area’s future, featuring a multimodal corridor, an entertainment district, and context-sensitive infill development, solidifying the connections between this new node and downtown.
Plusurbia is grateful for the large turnout and exceptional questions, helping illustrate how the privately led collaboration with the City made this project different, and the key timeliness of completing the plan before the adoption of Greenville’s new development code.
