SC performing arts venue eyeing $36 million expansion. Here’s what’s proposed

The Peace Center in Greenville announced Tuesday a $36 million renovation of several buildings on its campus for use as a music club, a listening room, recording studios and dorms for artists.

It will expand the downtown Greenville property along the Reedy River to 10 venues that now include a main concert hall that hosts Broadway touring companies, among other events, the smaller Gunter Theatre and an outdoor amphitheater.

Megan Riegel, president of The Peace Center, said the new spaces “will create a vibe of a music town for Greenville.”

The plan, which will involve renovation of two buildings that front Main Street, will go before the city’s Design Review Board on Oct. 6.

Several years ago, the board turned down the Peace Center’s plans for the Wyche Pavilion, an open air venue commonly used for receptions — a blow Riegel referred to several times during her presentation on the stage of the concert hall.

“We listened,” she said.

The Wyche project would have enclosed and expanded the space to make it a year-round venue.

The new proposal is much grander.

Called A Music Project, the new spaces are “the Peace Center’s answer to the Upstate’s hunger for more live music.”

The plan envisions taking the historic Roe Coach Factory and creating a flat-floor music club that will attract genres such as rock, jazz, techno, country, pop, R&B, and electronic dance.

Riegel said the space will be similar to The Orange Peel in Asheville and the Fillmore in Charlotte.

A listening room called The Mockingbird, a nod to Nashville’s Bluebird Café, will be located in the historic Gullick and Markley buildings on Main Street.

Above the Mockingbird will be a three-bedroom suite for artists performing at any Peace Center venue. Next door will be The Studio, a professional podcast and recording studio that will be managed by a new hire Riegel did not name but said the person went to Greenville’s Fine Arts Center and is working in New York City.

As for the Wyche Pavilion, Riegel said they wanted to “put some lipstick on it.”

It will remain an open air venue with enhanced landscaping to better incorporate the building into the campus.

“A lot of people don’t realize it’s the Peace Center,” she said.

If the review board approves, construction is expected to begin in February 2023 and completed in late 2024.