An infill housing development planned in Greenville’s North Main neighborhood has sparked concerns for nearby residents.
The Gallo Co., a Greenville-based real estate firm, plans to build seven single-family homes on two parcels of land on Avondale Drive. The project would replace two vacant homes that were damaged during Hurricane Helene in 2024.
North Main residents voiced their concerns about the project to Greenville City Council on July 13. Opponents have organized under the banner of “One Community One Voice” and gathered more than 600 signatures on a petition against the residential development.
Project details
The two properties at 240 E. Avondale Drive and 107 N. Avondale Drive were listed for sale in February 2025. Anthony Gallo, principal broker at The Gallo Co., said they watched the properties sit on the market for several months before submitting an offer. The company officially closed on the parcels in January.
“We thought this might be a nice opportunity for us to make an impression on not only North Main but on Greenville and create a product that would be unique to the market,” Gallo said.
Gallo explained that the company has renovated several homes in the North Main neighborhood over the years. Other local projects by The Gallo Co. include the ongoing adaptive reuse project to transform the historic Emmanuel Baptist Church at 14 Deering St. into an affordable multifamily housing complex.
The multi-story single-family homes envisioned for Avondale Drive would be approximately 3,500 square feet each, with potentially four bedrooms and an attached garage. The seven homes would share a single driveway, allowing the developers to add new sidewalks and landscaping to the front of the property.
“Every home was intended to kind of model after the history of North Main and to mimic an architectural piece that you see in North Main,” said Anna Gallo, managing partner at The Gallo Co.
The Gallo Co. presented the residential development at the city’s project preview meeting in March. This was required for the developers to receive staff approval for a minor subdivision application for the project. Anna Gallo said residents gave constructive feedback about the project at the meeting, but not the kind of opposition they are currently seeing.
Neighborhood concerns
Rosemary Hughes has lived on North Avondale Drive since 2012. She attended the July 13 meeting to oppose the proposed residential development on her street. Hughes said she recognizes the need to redevelop the properties, but it needs to be completed in a balanced way.
Many residents, like Hughes, believe that seven homes would be too many to build on the 1.4-acre site. Other concerns included stormwater runoff, tree clearing, pedestrian safety and traffic congestion caused by the development.
“We support development, but we respectfully request a lower-density outcome that better reflects the existing North Main neighborhood pattern and infrastructure capacity,” said Tim Sellers, a North Main resident.
Both properties on Avondale Drive are zoned House C District (RH-C) in the city, which allows for lots with a minimum width of 40 feet. Based on this requirement, the developers could potentially build around eight homes on the site, which has 330 linear feet of street frontage.
Gallo said building seven homes was determined to be the most financially viable option to cover the fixed costs needed to complete the large amount of site work for the residential development.
Greenville City Councilmember John DeWorken, a North Main resident, said the project shows a vulnerability in the Greenville Development Code by allowing seven 40-foot-wide lots to be created in a neighborhood where the average lot width is 79 feet.
“I look forward to working with council and looking to see how we can make sure that this doesn’t happen again, and then also look forward to working with the neighbors and the Gallos to see if we can come to a point where we all feel good,” DeWorken said.
Refining plans
After attending the July 13 meeting, the Gallos plan to work with its development team and the city to fine-tune the project to address resident concerns. They will also examine potential ways to cut down project costs that would allow for a lower-density housing development.
“But at this time, we just simply don’t (know),” Anthony Gallo said. “What we do know is that seven homes financially models out enough to take on the risk of the project.”
The Gallo Co. will voluntarily return to the city’s project preview meeting in August to answer questions about the residential development. The meeting will be held on Aug. 25 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Greenville Civic Design Center at 15 S. Main St.
“Once we have the project preview meeting and gather some of the additional feedback, we intend to submit and hopefully start construction as soon as we can,” Anna Gallo said.
