Intersect East | Greenville, North Carolina

Story

Greenville, North Carolina was once the epicenter for leaf tobacco farming and auctioning. Then tobacco took a nosedive and the main economic driver for the city with it. In the years that followed the exodus of tobacco, the hospital grew to care for 12 counties in the surrounding area, propelling it to become a preeminent teaching hospital in the region with 9,000 employees. The university, East Carolina University (ECU), also grew tremendously and now boasts over 30,000 faculty and students. Both the hospital and the university are conveniently located in downtown Greenville and it just so happened that sitting between the two were 19 acres of vacant and dilapidated tobacco auction warehouses.

Solution

Develop the vacant historic structures and remaining property. We elevated the entire concept from an innovation hub to a Pacesetter Innovation Hub – an Olympic training center for champion businesses that encourages these industries to relocate R&D to Intersect East. We completely rewired and connected two existing, powerful economic engines – to help promote jobs, living, and new retail opportunities. They’re also training their future workforce with the best and brightest from ECU.

Our vision was to repurpose vacant rail lines and convert them into a hiking and biking trail with access points throughout this growing cultural district of restaurants and shops. We’re even remodeling an old train car and transforming it into a “food train” – not a food truck – a food train – for a full-service restaurant like no other.

Impact

Injecting $300 million cost in this 10-year project will reverberate to impact the city and the region by a projected $635 million and over 3,000 additional jobs.