{"id":33023,"date":"2020-11-01T14:49:56","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T19:49:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=33023"},"modified":"2024-12-17T15:23:20","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T20:23:20","slug":"gather-round-these-bricks-have-a-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/gather-round-these-bricks-have-a-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Gather \u2019Round – These Bricks Have a Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

THERE\u2019S AN OLD SAYING,\u00a0\u201cI wish I knew then what I know now.\u201d For\u00a0Drew Parker \u201900<\/strong>, one of three partners developing\u00a0The Commons<\/a>, it\u2019s better that he didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The food hall and business cluster, which sits on the banks of the Reedy River and along the Swamp Rabbit Trail in Greenville, South Carolina, has transformed a row of abandoned warehouses into a space where local businesses and restaurants grow and community gathers. But when Parker and his partners purchased the buildings in 2015, he had no idea of the obstacles they would face to turn their vision into reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad I known what we ended up going through, and\u00a0had I had more experience, I probably would not have kept going,\u201d says Parker. \u201cBut you get to a point where there\u2019s no turning back, and you\u2019ve got to go forward. It has been 100 percent worth it, so sometimes not knowing something is the best thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little did Parker and his business partners know when they bought the warehouses on Welborn Street west of downtown, the city was working on plans to tear the structures down to make way for Unity Park. The city\u2019s new 60-acre signature park will open in October 2021.<\/p>\n

Parker and his partners had to work with the state officials on plans to clean up contamination on the site, and with the federal emergency agency because the land was in a floodway. Then the nonprofit Feed and Seed, whose partnership Parker says was \u201calmost the backbone of the project,\u201d had to drop out because of funding shortfalls, severely setting The Commons back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were our conduit to getting fresh food to the surrounding Southernside neighborhood, a recognized food desert. That was going to be a big part of the project,\u201d says Parker. \u201cWhen it didn\u2019t work out, that was a huge blow to us. We had to go back to the drawing board when that unraveled and re-plan, re-engineer and find new tenant partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker and his partners, Outdoor Sports Marketing co-owner and president Rion Smith and Ridgeline Construction co-owner Ray Foral, moved their offices to The Commons. They signed up other businesses, from those peddling web design to custom denim to cycling gear, to join them \u2013 Billiam, Carolina Triathlon, X-Agency, Yield, GruffyGoat, Photoelectric and Project Plus. In November of 2019, The Commons Market opened with Golden Brown & Delicious, Methodical Coffee, the Bake Room, Automatic Taco, and Community Tap Trailside. The news coming in was good: Some of the restaurants had their best-ever January.<\/p>\n

Construction of Unity Park started. The team knew it would affect parking and traffic and had a plan to deal with it.<\/p>\n

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a challenge,\u201d says Parker. A statewide order closed dining rooms in March, limiting restaurants to take-out and curbside pickup orders. In May, restaurant patrons were allowed to dine in outdoor spaces before the state allowed restaurants to fully reopen about a week later.<\/p>\n

From skeptic to partner<\/h2>\n

Making adjustments is nothing new to Parker. While at Furman, he thought he would play professional tennis after graduation.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring my sophomore year, I realized I had better buckle down and study because I would need a degree \u2013 that I wasn\u2019t going to make it as a professional tennis player,\u201d says Parker, who played for the Paladins from 1997 to 2000 and made the All-Southern Conference tennis team in 2000 for doubles.<\/p>\n

He picked communication studies as a major because it didn\u2019t have labs that would interfere with tennis practice. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know what it was when I decided to major in it,\u201d says Parker, a part of the department\u2019s first graduating class.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt taught me a lot about how to connect with people and how to handle tough situations,\u201d he says. \u201cNot a day goes by without some challenge, whether it\u2019s negotiating or dealing with a government entity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Parker wanted to stay in Greenville after graduation to be near his then-girlfriend, now-wife\u00a0Annie Wood \u201901<\/strong>. When he asked former Furman tennis coach Paul Scarpa for suggestions, he was told to take a real estate class. A week later, Parker enrolled in the Greenville-based Wyatt Institute of Real Estate.<\/p>\n

After earning his real estate license, he worked for a broker within commuting distance and then went to work with Coldwell Banker Commercial. After seven years, Parker started his own commercial real estate firm, The Parker Group.<\/p>\n

Then the recession hit, bringing commercial real estate investment to a halt.<\/p>\n

\u201cIT HAS BEEN 100 PERCENT WORTH IT, SO SOMETIMES NOT KNOWING SOMETHING IS THE BEST THING.\u201d<\/h4>\n

\u201cThe only thing that was moving then was residential, primarily first-time homebuyers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

After selling houses for seven years, Parker decided he wanted to create the products for those buyers. He started doing urban infill development \u2013 building on the urban grid instead of expanding the grid \u2013 with a townhouse project called West Park & Townes.<\/p>\n

Greenville Mayor Knox White remembers it was troubling when Parker and his partners bought the old warehouse buildings before the city could do so in order to demolish them. But today, White says he has never known\u00a0a more visionary and talented group than Parker and his partners.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe moved from concern and skepticism to being big believers in their vision as a complement to the park. It\u2019s been a close partnership ever since,\u201d White says. \u201cThe Commons provides a glimpse\u00a0of how great Unity Park will be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drew Parker \u201900 helped bring The Commons to life. It hasn\u2019t been easy, and he\u2019s not done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":295,"featured_media":33024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2892,2894,1963],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2020","category-feature-fall-2020","category-furman-magazine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/295"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33023"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35642,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33023\/revisions\/35642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}