On the Trail

On the Trail, a 240-acre mixed-use development located in Greenville, South Carolina. This planned community is being built on the site of the former Union Bleachery/Cone Mills Textile Mill, which was a thriving commerce center in the Upstate in the 1900s. However, the mill was closed to the public in 2003 after a fire and has sat abandoned ever since.

In 2011, the mill was added to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund list of contaminated properties, making it a challenging development site. Many teams have proposed projects for the site, but none were able to overcome the development hurdles, which included complex environmental, administrative, municipal, state, federal, zoning, permitting, and financing issues.

That is, until Warren Zinn and his joint-venture partner, Dean Warhaft, came up with the right strategy to move the project forward. Warren and Dean worked to create a comprehensive master plan for a new community on the site of the former Union Bleachery/Cone Mills Textile Mill. Their plan included thousands of residential units, local retail and office space, a hotel, education and research campus-oriented developments, and public spaces, all designed to be walkable, bikeable, and cohesive.

Warren and Dean secured County approvals for their master plan, which included entitlements for up to 25,000,000 SF of development and a tax incentive plan to make the site financially viable. After successfully obtaining approvals from the County, the State Environmental Agency, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), they brought in a development partner with expertise in residential development to take over the project.

Today, the new community at the site of the former mill is under development and will bring new life to this former industrial area.