Greenville Planners Advance Largest Annexation in Years, Bringing Woodruff Road Retail Corridor Into City Limits

GREENVILLE, S.C. — The Greenville Planning Commission voted unanimously Aug. 6 to advance a proposal annexing roughly 135 acres along Woodruff Road into the city, teeing up what would be the largest single annexation Greenville has approved since the Cherrydale area in 2024 and adding a heavily trafficked retail corridor to the city’s tax rolls and zoning authority.

The annexation area covers about 88 acres of real property and roughly 48 acres of right-of-way. The bulk of the real property is the Merovan Business Center, a retail and commercial hub whose tenants include Sam’s Club, Chick-fil-A, Dave’s Hot Chicken, Zaxby’s, City Barbeque, Discount Tire, Hurricane Express Wash and a Shake Shack. The measure now heads to Greenville City Council, which is expected to hold a public hearing and consider first reading of an annexation ordinance at its Aug. 24 meeting. An annexation ordinance requires two readings before taking effect.

The proposal relies on the state’s 75% annexation method, under which property owners representing at least 75% of the parcels and 75% of the assessed value must sign a petition indicating willingness to be annexed. Notably, that threshold allows the city to annex individual properties whose owners have not signed on, provided the overall petition clears the bar — a mechanism developers and property owners along contested corridors watch closely.

Planning commissioners voted to establish zoning classifications of Business General District, Business Heavy District and Industrial Flex District across the annexed acreage. During the public hearing, the lone speaker asked whether the Industrial Flex designation would open the door to heavier industrial uses. Austin Rutherford, the city’s senior development planner, told commissioners the proposed zoning mirrors Greenville County’s existing S1 Services designation for the property and that staff is not aware of any proposed change in use.

“The proposed zoning matches the county’s existing zoning for the property,” Rutherford said, adding staff had not been made aware of plans to intensify uses on the site.

For commercial real estate professionals, the move is notable less for what it changes on the ground today and more for what it signals about the city’s growth trajectory along one of the Upstate’s busiest commercial arteries. Bringing the Merovan Business Center and its surrounding right-of-way into city limits shifts permitting, code enforcement and future rezoning decisions from Greenville County to the city of Greenville, a jurisdictional change that can affect everything from signage rules to future redevelopment approvals for owners and prospective buyers along the corridor. Annexations of this scale also typically presage additional infill and redevelopment interest, brokers say, as properties gain access to city services and come under a single planning authority rather than a patchwork of county and municipal rules.

Community members will be able to speak during the Aug. 24 public hearing without prior notification. If approved on first and second reading, the annexation would mark the city’s most significant single expansion of its commercial tax base in roughly two years.