$130M project to build likely tallest building in SC moves forward. Here’s where, what it’ll offer

What will become one of South Carolina’s tallest buildings recently cleared an important hurdle when Greenville’s Design and Review Board approved lighting and landscaping plans.

The Gateway project is a 29-story mixed use development at the entrance to downtown Greenville on a slightly less than 2-acre site vacant since Greenville Memorial Auditorium was razed 28 years ago.

Located at 250 North Church Street, the project moves to the permitting phase, the final step before construction begins sometime this year.

Florida-based N.R. Investments is developing the $130 million project to include 342 apartments, 12,000 square feet for as many as five commercial and retail businesses, public plazas, and a parking structure with capacity for more than 350 vehicles.

The development is expected to create more than 100 jobs.

Greenville Memorial Auditorium closed in 1996 in favor of a new arena — first called Bilo Center and now Bon Secours — was torn down the following year.

Various developments have been proposed over the years, but never came to fruition, so many that Mayor Knox White called the site the Bermuda Triangle of downtown development — where projects go to die.

NR founder Nir Shoshani and his business partner Ron Gottesman have projects in various Florida locations, Ohio and Peru.

One project Greenville leaders think shows NR can take on the Gateway site is when they took the shell of a building in a distressed area just north of downtown Miami and created 81 units called Filling Station Lofts.

That led to the blighted surrounding Omni district becoming The Arts and Entertainment District, a residential neighborhood of historic buildings and residential towers that also includes a performing arts center.