WINNSBORO, S.C. — Downtown Winnsboro is continuing its revitalization efforts and now developers want to bring new attractions to the town.
“What they are proposing is the apartments and restaurant critical, especially in this building,” says Winnsboro Town Manager Jason Taylor.
He says the former Wells Fargo building in the heart of the town has been vacant for almost a year, and Capstone Property, a development company, could soon change that.
“They held an auction on the building, Wells Fargo had a number of buildings across the country they were auctioning of ours being one of them, it went up for bid and closed for $430,000 dollars and they are at this point in the closing process,” Taylor adds.
Capstone Property Group wants to bring multiple apartments to the top floor and an affordable restaurant on the first floor, according to Taylor only around 25% of the downtown buildings have active retail currently, and these developers are hoping to change that.
Additionally, they say the coming development of Scout Motors, a new electric vehicle plant being built just down the road in Blythewood, will have an impact even up in Winnsboro. That development is projected by company officials to bring 4,000 new jobs.
“News of the Scout plant , we expect to see tremendous growth from that Scout plant,” says Webb Yongue with Capstone Property.
“This is still something the town of Winnsboro needs and is missing, in the market, they have to travel 20 minutes just to go somewhere they can get a cocktail at," he said. "We think we’ll be able to fit four apartments .I’ve actually had several people reach out since they’ve heard we plan on doing this who have interest in getting some apartments, I mean everyone wants to live downtown."
The project is to be completed by the end of the next summer, making these apartments the first of their kind in downtown Winnsboro.
Outside of this developer the town of Winnsboro has been looking to move the area forward, they have received state appropriations for revitalization and grant money to develop a plan.