Introduction
Drew Thigpen, partner and Vice President of Development at Greenberg Gibbons Properties, joins Jack Ossa on The Power of Design Podcast. Drew leads development in North and South Carolina for the company's shallow bay light industrial division, which builds flexible office and warehouse space for small and regional businesses.
It was Drew's first time on a podcast. The talk moves from a childhood move from Louisiana to Belgium and an international career in engineering and construction, to the business plan that created his company and the reasons he is so focused on one building type.
About the Episode
Drew grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In his junior year of high school his parents told the three children that the family was moving to Brussels because of his father's work in oil and gas. He describes it as an awakening: new languages, new friends and a wish to see as much of the world as possible. He studied civil engineering at Clemson and joined an international engineering and construction company with a training program that rotated him through departments and cities. Over seven or eight years he moved eight or nine times, including two years in Dubai on liquefied natural gas projects.
In Dubai he saw how the owner side of large projects works, including how they are capitalized and how sites are found, and he decided he wanted to put down roots, make decisions earlier in the process and work in a smaller team. After graduate school he and a friend from Clemson wrote a plan to develop shallow bay light industrial buildings in the Carolinas. The owners of Greenberg Gibbons Commercial, a Maryland developer with more than 50 years of experience, agreed to keep the new company inside their group.
Drew explains the product in detail: speculative buildings with no tenants signed, subdivided into spaces for tenants who need both office and warehouse. He describes how the first projects were funded, how they later brought in an institutional partner, how many buildings have been completed and are in the pipeline, and why he and his partners stay focused on a single type of building. The conversation closes with a comparison of design-build in the United States and in Colombia, which Jack knows firsthand.
Key Takeaways
- Focus on one product: the team calls itself expert in shallow bay light industrial and refines its design and process after every project.
- Serve overlooked tenants: developers chase 100,000 square foot tenants, so businesses needing 10,000 square feet of office and warehouse are underserved.
- Use institutional resources: staying inside a larger group gave a four-partner startup access to legal, accounting, HR and project management support.
- Build for flexibility: speculative shells let the team divide and finish space to fit each tenant.
- Choose the right sites: locations sit between interstate access and residential neighborhoods, close to the tenants' customers.
- Decide and move on: gather feedback from the team, make the decision with conviction and keep going, because many good decisions beat a few perfect ones.
- Integrated design-build saves time: real design-build means the designer and builder work together, which brings earlier pricing and faster schedules.
Highlights from the Conversation
We build empty concrete boxes, as we lovingly say.
Drew Thigpen
Make decisions, have conviction about them and move on.
Drew Thigpen
It's been resiliency in accepting that I've made a lot of mistakes.
Drew Thigpen
Drew also says his team celebrates wins on purpose, because the work is genuinely hard.
Topics Discussed
- Growing up in Louisiana and moving to Belgium
- Working on international engineering and construction projects
- Moving from contractor to owner-side development
- Forming a light industrial company inside a larger developer
- Choosing markets, sites and tenants for shallow bay buildings
- Funding projects with equity partners
- Design-build in the United States compared with Colombia
- Work-life balance, fitness and staying focused
Why This Conversation Matters
Light industrial buildings combine office and warehouse space, so their design has to balance a presentable front with practical operations behind it. That mix is something we explore in architecture projects such as First in Flight, an industrial and office building, and eFactor 3. Drew's emphasis on repeatable design, early pricing and a close relationship between designer and builder shows why clear program requirements and early collaboration make speculative buildings work.
About the Guest
Drew Thigpen is a founding partner and Vice President of Development at Greenberg Gibbons Properties in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he leads development in North and South Carolina for the shallow bay light industrial division. Raised in Louisiana and educated in Belgium and at Clemson, he trained as a civil engineer and worked for an international engineering and construction company before moving into development.
