Why Downtown Florence Is Growing Outward, and What It Means for Every Neighborhood Along the Way

If you've driven through downtown Florence lately, you've probably noticed something. The historic core feels full. Storefronts that sat empty for years now have lines out the door. And just outside that eight-block heart of the city, cranes and construction fences have popped up in places nobody would have called "downtown" a decade ago.

You're not imagining it. Florence's downtown has run out of room inside its historic footprint, and the city, along with some of the region's biggest institutions, has rewritten its plans because of it. What's exciting is where that growth is headed. It isn't just filling in a few empty lots. It's reaching north into Oakland Avenue and the North Irby corridor, east and south along the medical district, and west into brand new mixed-use development, and at every step, the people already living in those neighborhoods are part of the plan, not an afterthought to it.

The Historic Core Really Is Full

For more than twenty years, the city's revitalization work centered almost entirely on the eight-block historic district. It worked. Building vacancy in that district fell from 42 percent to about 6 percent, the area has drawn more than $300 million in combined public and private reinvestment, and 79 buildings have been rehabilitated along the way. Downtown Florence Main Street won the national Great American Main Street Award in 2023, one of only two South Carolina cities ever to receive it, following Greenville.

That success created a good problem to have. There simply isn't much land left inside the historic footprint to build on. Florence Downtown Development Corporation manager Hannah Davis has been direct about it, explaining that the organization spent the last twenty years focused on the historic core and is now turning its attention to the gateways and corridors that lead into it.

The city's response was formal, not casual. The Downtown Florence 2030 master plan, adopted in June 2023, officially expands the definition of downtown beyond the historic district into a larger redevelopment area built around specific corridors: Irby Street as the primary commercial corridor, Coit Street as a neighborhood commercial corridor, Cheves Street as the city's "Eds and Meds" corridor tracing the medical and education campuses from Circle Park to McLeod Regional Medical Center, and Palmetto Street as a connecting corridor between districts. The plan's headline residential goal is ambitious and encouraging: 1,000 new apartments, townhomes, and single-family homes added downtown over ten years.

Where the Medical Growth Is Headed

The medical expansion you may have noticed is real, and it's anchored by Francis Marion University, the University of South Carolina, and the Medical University of South Carolina working together on the Floyd Medical Education Consortium Building. It sits on Gregg Avenue off West Cheves Street, on land the city gifted to Francis Marion University, and it's a $22.5 million project, with $21 million appropriated by the state legislature. It's expected to be complete by the end of 2026 and will house third- and fourth-year medical students along with residency and graduate health science programs. It's FMU's sixth downtown property and third building dedicated to medical education, and it's named for Dr. C. Edward "Eddie" Floyd, the longtime Florence vascular surgeon and USC trustee who, along with his wife Kay, gave more than $30 million to USC over their lifetimes.

Just as significant is what's happened along East Cedar Street. Construction began in 2024 on the Florence Regional Health Care Center at the intersection of East Cedar and South Dargan streets, with completion originally targeted for November 2025. In a separate but related move, the state announced a first-of-its-kind $100 million behavioral health facility, named for the late Senator Hugh K. Leatherman, planned for the Cedar Tower campus, also on East Cedar Street. That project combines up to $100 million in state funding through the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services with a $5 million commitment from the city of Florence, described at the time as the city's first direct investment of that kind.

Pushing West and North

On the west side, Urban Square is the biggest single private investment downtown has seen, a minimum $65 million mixed-use project bordered by West Evans, Coit, McQueen, and Baroody streets. The city's four-story parking deck is already built, the 102-unit Gamble Apartments broke ground in December 2025, and a hotel is expected to begin construction later in 2026. A few blocks over, The Sarah is a smaller but notable $4 million development on East N.B. Baroody Street backed by a $500,000 city grant, bringing new commercial space and townhomes to a corridor the city has specifically targeted for redevelopment.

To the north, the old Young Pecan plant site on West Lucas Street tells a good story about how these projects evolve for the better. After the pecan plant was demolished, the site is becoming the new home for Faith Healthcare Center, currently on Sumter Street, in a $10 million project. Once the new facility opens, the city will take ownership of Faith's old property and redevelop it into single-family housing, continuing a pattern of turning old industrial land into modern healthcare use first, then new housing behind it.

North Florence: Where the Growth Becomes Personal

If downtown's commercial and medical growth is the headline, the story unfolding along Oakland Avenue and North Irby Street is where Florence's plans get personal, and it's genuinely worth celebrating.

Back in 2014, the city adopted a Neighborhood Revitalization Plan naming North Florence, Northwest Florence, and East Florence as gateway neighborhoods to downtown, meant to be transformed block by block into stable, mixed-income communities. That plan and the newer 2030 downtown master plan work hand in hand. While Cheves Street handles medical and education growth and Urban Square handles hospitality, North Florence is where the city is investing directly in the neighborhood's residential foundation, right along the same North Irby corridor the downtown plan already treats as a primary spine.

The clearest sign of that investment is a pair of connected school projects. North Vista Elementary received an entirely new $30.3 million, 90,000-square-foot building on the site of the old Wilson High School, opening in July 2024 with room for 700 students. Williams Middle School then moved into the former North Vista Elementary building across the street, with a new $7.7 million gymnasium addition, ending the district's need to use mobile classroom units at that campus. Both schools sit on North Irby Street, right in the heart of North Florence, giving the neighborhood a modern, well-resourced educational anchor for the families who call it home.

Oakland Avenue itself is getting a specific, funded push. The city and the Florence Housing Authority are replacing the aging Oakland Place apartments with new housing to be named in honor of Dr. Iona Jones, with a community walk in November 2025 marking the formal start. Alongside that, a stormwater mitigation agreement covering North Church Street and Oakland Avenue, finalized by city council in September 2025 for roughly $3.47 million, is addressing longtime drainage concerns in the area, and SCDOT has separately been improving the Oakland Avenue roadway. The nearby Florence Flats Apartment Homes on West Darlington completed a $4.5 million renovation with matching drainage fixes. On Brunson Street, ten new homeownership units are underway with $25,000 in city-backed down payment assistance available to qualifying buyers. And Vista Place, a catalytic redevelopment project on Vista Street between Irby and Oakland, sits directly across from North Vista Elementary, building new homes in phases.

A Genuine Commitment to Protecting Long-Time Residents

For families who've lived in North Florence for generations, the most important question isn't what's being built, it's who it's being built for. The city's own record gives real reason for confidence here.

When Florence adopted its comprehensive plan in 2023, Assistant City Manager Clint Moore was direct about the intent behind the neighborhood investment: "We've made a major emphasis on our existing neighborhoods, how to revitalize them and how to do that appropriately so you're not displacing or causing gentrification or anything like that." Mayor Teresa Myers Ervin echoed that same commitment to equity in her own words: "If you're ashamed of any area of your city, that means you need to address that, because if you don't want the businesses to come and look at a certain area, that's saying that you're not prepared for them."

That commitment is backed by real, running programs, not just words. The city's Emergency Rehabilitation Assistance program exists specifically to help current homeowners repair and stay in their homes rather than being priced out by deferred maintenance. The First-Time Homebuyers Program, along with down payment and closing cost assistance, is tied directly to homes built at Vista Place, Historic Pine, Old Carver Station, and Sumter Station, all catalytic redevelopment sites inside North Florence. In practice, that means as families' homes eventually pass to the next generation, there's a funded path for that next generation, or for new North Florence families, to buy back into the very neighborhood their families helped build. Building Florence Together Community Development Corporation, an entity of the city, focuses specifically on housing rehabilitation, financial literacy, and workforce development for existing residents.

The city has also, in at least one documented case, used its authority to acquire property for a clear public purpose. In 2023, the city moved to acquire a vacant home at the corner of East Darlington and East Lucas streets, at the entrance to Oakland Avenue, in order to install fueling infrastructure for city vehicles. City Manager Scotty Davis described the corner plainly as "a gateway to a historic neighborhood," underscoring how seriously city leadership takes the visual and civic importance of that entrance. It's worth noting that this remains the only individually documented case of its kind in the corridor. Everything else on record, from the Stackley Street lot purchases to the North Pointe Subdivision, has moved forward through voluntary, grant-funded partnerships with residents rather than condemnation, a pattern the city has continued to lean on as its preferred approach.

What This Means If You Call Florence Home

Put together, the picture is a good one. Downtown Florence's historic core is essentially built out, and rather than treating that as a limit, the city and its partners have used it as a reason to invest more broadly and more intentionally. Cheves Street is becoming a medical and education corridor. Urban Square and Cedar Street are reshaping the west and south edges of downtown. And North Florence, anchored by two newly rebuilt schools and backed by real homeownership and rehabilitation programs, is being treated as a true gateway neighborhood rather than an afterthought.

If you're trying to understand why construction, traffic patterns, and even school pride feel different than they did five years ago, this is why. Downtown Florence isn't just growing outward. It's growing outward on purpose, with the people already here included in the plan.

Sources

• Post and Courier, "Downtown Florence wants to expand its reach outside the historic district. Here's how." (February 2025)
• Post and Courier, "Construction continues on SC university's new $22.5 million medical building" (July 2026)
• Post and Courier, "New Florence healthcare facility may begin construction soon" (September 2025)
• Post and Courier, "Work is underway on Florence apartment complex as part of $65 million project to transform downtown" (November 2025)
• Post and Courier, "USC names growing medical school after late SC doctor, board member" (May 2026)
• Post and Courier, "Florence master plan geared to promote responsible growth" (May 2023)
• MASC, "Building the Next Block: Downtown Florence Looks Forward From National Award" (July 2023)
• Main Street America, 2023 Great American Main Street Award profile, Florence, South Carolina
• City of Florence, Downtown Florence 2030 master plan (adopted June 12, 2023)
• City of Florence, Comprehensive Plan (adopted June 12, 2023)
• City of Florence, Neighborhood Revitalization Plan (2014)
• City of Florence, Quality Affordable Housing and Community Services program pages
• City of Florence, Building Florence Together Community Development Corporation
• WBTW, "Florence to get first-of-its-kind $100 million behavioral health facility" (June 2023)
• WMBF News, "New $10 million nursing facility coming to Florence" (January 2019)
• SCNow / Morning News, "Florence working to acquire, tear down house" (March 2023)
• SCNow / Morning News, "Florence plans more stormwater upgrades, North Church and Oakland areas to benefit" (September 2025)
• Francis Marion University, "Drs. Bruce and Lee Foundation boosts medical education with $12.5 million donation to FMU" (2021)
• South Carolina Grantmakers, "The Drs. Bruce & Lee Foundation donates approximately 140 acres for construction of a soccer complex"