Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Hartness Development plans innovation district on Poinsett Highway

Ross Norton //October 28, 2021//

Hartness Development plans innovation district on Poinsett Highway

Ross Norton //October 28, 2021//

Listen to this article

Hartness Development plans to build a large mixed-use “innovation district” at 701 Poinsett Highway in Greenville. The project is intended to result in a space that will foster innovation as a gathering spot for innovators and entrepreneurs.

Partners in the Crescent Startup Community include FlywheelFurman University, the S.C. Research AuthorityVentureSouth and others. Hartness Development announced Wednesday that it will break ground on the project in early 2022 and Crescent will open late next year with the completion of the first phase in the old Pepsi bottling buiding. 

“We are excited to introduce an innovation district that will bring together and champion our thriving entrepreneur community,” Sean Hartness, CEO of Hartness Development, said a news release. “Greenville is home to many successful startups and aspiring entrepreneurs, but it lacks a large-scale space for them to meaningfully connect and innovate alongside like-minded individuals and organizations. This space is vital to accelerating and driving innovation, and Crescent will fill a gap by providing all resources in one central place. With this strategy and a broad approach to startups, we see this innovation district generating hundreds of new ideas and businesses.” 

Crescent Startup Community is Hartness Development’s first project off the Hartness family home site, now a traditional neighborhood development that continues to grow. Crescent will sit on seven acres of land located off a future spur of the Swamp Rabbit Trail. Developers say it will benefit from its proximity to downtown Greenville, Furman University and Travelers Rest. 

“The time is right for Greenville, really the Upstate, to have an innovation district,” Anthony Herrera, chief innovation officer of Furman University, said in the release. “Poinsett Highway is the ideal location to house a live, work, play and learn community focused on the future of education, work and economic development. Crescent Startup Community is possible because of the collaboration between academic, civic, and corporate stakeholders focused supporting our entrepreneurial and innovation community. This place will provide everyone access to the resources and connections necessary to successfully launch and grow their venture.” 

Crescent is intended to provide those live-work-play opportunities through the collaboration of the institutional partners, entrepreneurship service organizations, and college and university programs, according to the news release. The organizations involved are there to connect inception and growth-stage companies with students, faculty and alumni and offer programming “designed to stimulate ideation, structured development and access to investment capital,” the release said. The recipe will include incubator programs for students, alumni and the community; pitch competitions; professional networking and mentorship; boot camps and design thinking workshops; social entrepreneurship study away programs; and curriculum majors, minors and certificates. Complementing Crescent’s coworking, maker and collaborative common area spaces will be a curated mix of tenants including Fitness with a View and Methodical Coffee

“Flywheel is thrilled to be working with Hartness Development, Furman and all of the other resident entrepreneurship service organizations involved in phase one of the innovation district,” Peter Marsh, founding partner of Flywheel, said in the release. “Our coworking innovation space, amenities and programming provide affordable full-service support for startups, solopreneurs, consultants and freelancers that are the heart and soul of any entrepreneurial ecosystem. In all the regions we serve, we try to co-locate a continuum of entrepreneurship resources under one roof so that any founder that walks in the door has access to developmental support and a contiguous capital stack. We look forward to bringing new value to the ecosystem in a vibrant live, work, play, learn district-scale community.” 

Its location on Poinsett Highway was the former home of the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co. Led by Thomas Hartness, the bottler was a part of the economic growth of mid-20th century Greenville. Hartness was a leader in the Pepsi company, buying Pepsi-Cola bottling rights in Greenville in 1940, and in technological innovations within the soft drink and bottling industry, according to the release. As an entrepreneur he expanded his company into other packaging enterprises, eventually building Hartness International into a worldwide company. 

Renovation and historic designation of the bottling facility building is phase one of the project and it will be an anchor of the innovation district, the release said. The remainder of the district will open in phases with new construction and the creation of green space. The site was also home to the Piedmont Shirt Factory, which was a hub of the textile industry when Greenville was known as the textile capital of the world. The location of the factory was within the city’s “Textile Crescent,” an area known for its innovation. The Piedmont Shirt Factory is also where Max Heller, an entrepreneur who would later be the mayor of Greenville, first worked as an immigrant from Austria during World War II. 

“Crescent will energize and retain our entrepreneurs, as well as continue the revitalization of Greenville’s Poinsett corridor,” Jim Burns, COO of Hartness Development, said in the release. “The land we acquired along Poinsett Highway has the potential to grow into a 15 to 20-acre site, and Crescent is the start of our strategy to rekindle and continue the location’s innovation history. We will restore the area to foster our own entrepreneurs and to attract large companies and institutions from around the region who can bring opportunities and further build the community.” 

-