VOLUME 25 NUMBER 8 ■ GSABUSINESS.COM
Fueling a better life
Green energy company grows into regional player. Page 14
Give them Liberty’s space
It’s new life for a former tap room at West End. Page 8
Country medicine
Health systems struggle to provide medicine in rural areas. Page 10
Another charge for a CEO Milliken chief tapped to lead national group. Page 21
network
MAY 9-MAY 22, 2022 ■ $2.25
Consortium secures grant to train electric vehicle workforce Clemson’s graduate program in mechanical engineering has been guiding students to careers through Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research for 20 years. (Photo/Clemson University)
By Ross Norton
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rnorton@scbiznews.com
rident Technical College took the lead on a grant to form a consortium that its members hope will create the next generation of innovation and talent for the electric vehicle industry. The consortium, called Collaborative Research: REVVED, for Revolutionizing Electric Vehicle Education, will receive $2.83
million from the National Science Foundation to fund the project. A growing need to develop a workforce that can build and service electric and autonomous vehicles, as well as develop the cybersecurity to protect them, is the driving force behind the effort, according to a news release. Even if they’re not making electrified vehicles in South Carolina, all of the automakers with plants in the state are manufacturing electric somewhere or conducting R&D to
that end. BMW Manufacturing in Greer has a production line for batteries on site. Spartanburg County’s next automaker, Oshkosh Defense, will make a mix of gas and electric vehicles for the U.S. Postal Service; a company called Arrival, based in Charlotte, is building an electric vehicle plant in York County; and the electric city buses made by Proterra are partially assembled in Greenville. See REVVED, Page 12
Department stores evolve, consolidate in digital age
INSIDE
Leading Off........................... 2 SC Biz News Briefs................. 3 C-Suite................................. 4 In Focus: Life Sciences........ 13 LIST: Life Science Cos.......... 18 At Work............................... 19 Viewpoint............................23
Part of the
By Molly Hulsey
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mhulsey@scbiznews.com
hree years into a pandemic some feared would bring death to the department store, behemoths of former Sears properties still litter the state’s shopping malls, empty and silent after shuttering in 2018 and 2020. Belk’s fulfillment center in Union County, once a growing economic boon to the rural
county, laid off 310 employees and closed its doors on April 30. And while store openings outpaced closings for the first time since 2014 in 2021, according to Colliers International’s 2022 Retail Outlook, those stores were smaller than they ever had been before at an average of 3,000 square feet. “I haven’t heard of, even a hint, of some department store that’s going to occupy a new 900,000-square-foot building,” Rox Pol-
In Focus Specialty spice
Common kitchen ingredient may hold key to more efficient, safer fuel cells Page 13
lard, Collier’s vice president of retail services in South Carolina, told SC Biz News. But not everything is as it seems — at least for the department store brands able to flex and adapt. Macy’s, one of the highest performing department stores in the nation, has seen revenue climb from $19.64 billion in 2019 to $25.29 billion in 2022 — and continues to See RETAIL, Page 12