Cherrydale area<\/a> merged in 2023.<\/p>\n\u201cWe believe in Greenville\u2014its vision, its planning, and its ability to bring people together,” said Greenville Mayor Knox White. “Thoughtful annexation lets more people share in that opportunity. It doesn\u2019t add new cars or new residents; it simply brings existing areas into a place with strong standards and responsible planning so we can guide growth the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city says that notable properties in the plan includes Sam\u2019s Club and the Merovan Business Center and office park. <\/p>\n
The city posted the following information on its website about the plans:<\/p>\n
“Annexation of a 135-acre area along Woodruff Road received unanimous approval from City Council on first reading, potentially expanding city boundaries and shaping future development.<\/p>\n
“The annexation covers 19 parcels along the Woodruff Road corridor near Interstate 385. It requires a second vote for final approval. The area includes approximately 87.46 acres of real property, along with roughly 47.6 acres of adjacent right-of-way. Notable property in the area includes Sam\u2019s Club as well as the Merovan Business Center and office park.<\/p>\n
‘This will cross us over the two-mile mark since we put a focus on annexations as a growth strategy in 2021,’ said Interim Planning Director Michael Frixen.<\/p>\n
“The annexation petition was submitted by property owners in accordance with South Carolina state law, exceeding the required 75% threshold for approval. If Council votes in favor at a second reading, the annexation will be final and would become the largest since 2024. The area would become subject to the City’s zoning and development regulations.”<\/p>\n
Original reporting below: <\/p>\n
The City of Greenville is looking to bring a portion of the heavily traveled Woodruff Road into city limits, marking the largest proposed annexation since the Cherrydale area merged in 2023.<\/p>\n
The 135-acre stretch includes businesses, major roadways and sidewalks near Interstate 385 and Smith Hines Road. Roughly 87 acres are considered real property, while the remaining approximately 47 acres are right-of-way.<\/p>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/dc540116-481d-430e-b7a7-634b30c40bba.png\")
<\/p>\n
SOURCE: City of Greenville<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This proposal would be slightly larger than the Cherrydale annexation. As opposed to the West Greenville annexation, which was largely residential, this would be focused on commercial developments.<\/p>\n
The city said it started the petition on April 14. For the petition to succeed, it would need to receive signatures from 75% of the property owners within the boundary within 180 days. This would mark Oct. 11 as the due date.<\/p>\n
Mayor Knox White said they would like to expand the city’s footprint after focusing on redeveloping key spots the community has come to know and love, for example, the downtown area or Unity Park.<\/p>\n
“We’re trying to make up for really decades of not paying a lot of attention to annexation, like we should,” White said.<\/p>\n
White said the annexation can give those within the boundary line access to efficient and effective emergency response, economic development and infrastructure projects you may not see in an unincorporated area. <\/p>\n
“Public safety is always number one. But right behind that is economic development. We engage with our businesses, whether they’re big or small businesses, in terms of getting to know them and what their needs are. We’ll have a chance to go in there with our different sign ordinances, landscaping ordinances, really a focus on quality of life, even in commercial sectors. I think you begin to see a difference, but that’s going to take a little time,” White said.<\/p>\n
Greenville County declined WYFF News 4’s request for comment but did confirm those annexed would be required to pay both county and city taxes.<\/p>\n
The biggest concern from people who fall within the annexation boundary is traffic, a known headache for those who travel along Woodruff Road.<\/p>\n
White said the city has plans to stay one step ahead with a real-time traffic monitoring facility on Halton Road:<\/p>\n
“These are existing areas. So we have to go in and kind of retrofit over time. Unfortunately, these areas were not in the city in the past or the way they developed… in my view, the commercial development was too dense. We have cameras. We have a sophistication in terms of analyzing traffic and controlling traffic lights. And that’s something that you don’t see in that area now,” White said.<\/p>\n
WYFF News 4 confirmed no connections to the proposed penny sales tax and a state-led project to relieve congestion along Woodruff Road. The city and the Greenville Pickens Area Transportation Study group said the funding efforts and projects are separate issues.<\/p>\n
The SCDOT congestion project has more than doubled in cost due to inflation<\/a>. A meeting has been scheduled for Aug. 10 to determine how the effort will be funded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greenville city leaders pass first reading to annex portion of Woodruff Road GREENVILLE, S.C. \u2014 The Greenville City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2475,74915,114489,2088,60,114479,114487,52829,114473,1160,114490,7605,114488,3422,114480,114481,114482,104864,114483,104228,104860,523,4583,6847,128,130,129,114484,114485,10553,22084,1704,114486,4051,114474,104862],"class_list":["post-271910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-acre","tag-annexation","tag-annexation-petition","tag-area","tag-business","tag-cherrydale","tag-cherrydale-area","tag-city-limit","tag-city-of-greenville","tag-economic-development","tag-final-approval","tag-first-reading","tag-funding-effort","tag-greenville","tag-greenville-county","tag-greenville-pickens-area-transportation-study","tag-halton-road","tag-infrastructure-project","tag-interstate-385","tag-little-time","tag-mayor-knox-white","tag-people","tag-plan","tag-portion","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-scdot","tag-smith-hines-road","tag-south-carolina","tag-term","tag-traffic","tag-west-greenville","tag-white","tag-woodruff-road","tag-wyff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a>GREENVILLE, S.C. \u2014<\/p>\n