The Southside Neighborhood in Spartanburg, South Carolina, has a growing elderly and low-income population. For years, the City struggled to attract new investment into Southside. The area has historically lacked retail establishments offering basic goods and services. As a long-standing client community of the National Development Council (NDC), the city of Spartanburg, SC requested assistance in structuring a new real estate development in its Southside Neighborhood. HEDC New Markets, Inc. worked with the city and Carolina First Bank to structure a $7 million NMTC investment for the South Church Street Plaza.

The city of Spartanburg worked with NDC and Carolina First Bank, and Spencer Hines Properties to develop a new 61,600 sq. ft. shopping center in the city’s Southside neighborhood. Now, groceries and apparel are available at the Plaza, and for the first time in more than a decade, the neighborhood has a pharmacy, which is minority-and-woman-owned as well as a minority-owned fast food franchise. Because the area market could not attract a grocer at market-rate retail rents, New Markets financing made it possible to structure below-market rents that attracted reputable tenants providing affordable goods and services and employing over 40 people. The city of Spartanburg has a population of less than 40,000. With this new shopping center, most residents now have a grocer within walking distance of their homes for the first time.

Tenants now include:

• Save a Lot grocery store that provides up to 40% in savings compared to other conventional grocers.
• Founders Federal Credit Union—the only credit union in the Southside neighborhood
• South Church Healthmark Pharmacy, a woman-owned minority pharmacy and the first pharmacy in the neighborhood in ten years
• Southside Barber Shop, a minority-owned barber shop
• Citi Trends, a 200-store apparel chain (catering to the fashion-conscious African-American family)