The exposed red brick and industrial bones of a building that used to be full of textile machinery give Judson Mill Lofts a movie-like feel. The building is now home to loft-style apartments with courtyard furniture and peaceful Sunday afternoons. The address is 701 Easley Bridge Road, Greenville, SC, and it’s only two miles from the city center. Near enough to the city to feel like you’re part of it. Just far enough away to feel like you’re in a real neighborhood.
For most of the people who lived there, it was just a neighborhood. Inside what used to be a working mill, there are now shops, offices, and apartments in a mixed-use development. The kind of place that young professionals, creative types, and people who like the idea of living somewhere with some history will want to move to.
Micah Lee, who lived there, talked about a normal Sunday afternoon that turned into something completely different. He heard a lot of noise in the hallway and went outside to find a group of people—first responders, voices, and a sense of urgency. He lives just seven doors away from where Hayden Panettiere was later found dead. “It is definitely shocking; it’s not something you expect to see on a Sunday,” he replied. When you recognize a face from TV while talking about someone who has just died, it can make you feel a little disconnected. Lee knew it. A lot of people in Greenville did.
In the afternoon of August 16, 2025, around 1:51 p.m., Greenville Police and EMS were called to Judson Mill Lofts to find a woman who was not responding. Even though advanced cardiac life support was used, the efforts to revive the person failed. At 2:32 p.m., Hayden Panettiere was pronounced dead. She was famous for playing cheerleader Claire Bennet on Heroes, Juliette Barnes on Nashville, and the girl in Remember the Titans who ran with Denzel Washington. She was 36 years old.
The Greenville County Coroner’s Office confirmed that there were no visible wounds or signs of trauma. Someone called 911 to report a cardiac arrest. The body was autopsied the next morning, but the cause and manner of death have not been determined yet. Based on what was learned so far, there were no signs of wrongdoing.
By the next morning, the news vans had been asked to leave the property and were parked across the street in a 2nd Avenue lot. Community manager Jillian Dillon drove around the complex on a golf cart and kindly but firmly told the media to go elsewhere. Residents got emails from management saying that the visible emergency response might have been unsettling. The emails also told them there was no threat to the community and asked them to respect the privacy of those involved by not talking to the press. That calm, thoughtful answer shows how seriously the community takes its residents, and it also shows how strange things had become.
William Tate, who works at an engineering firm on the Judson Mill campus, said he didn’t know what had happened until he saw the news trucks on his way to work. “I Googled it, and was like, oh crap,” he replied. “It was right over there.” People who were connected to the site seemed to have the same reaction: a casual recognition that turned into something more serious.
When Judson Mill Lofts were built, the builders wanted to create a community for people who made things. They also wanted to honor the makers who worked in the mill before them and invite the next generation to become a part of something with real history. In two phases, Judson Mill Lofts and The Jenny & Westervelt, there are studios, one-, two-, and three-bedroom loft suites. Planning experts use this type of building to show what they mean when they talk about adaptive reuse done right.
The building project couldn’t have planned for a Sunday afternoon that would quickly make its address one of the most searched places in the country. Communities don’t usually get to pick when they become known across the country. This wasn’t picked by Judson Mill Lofts. But the way the residents and management responded—with tact, calm, and a refusal to make the grief into a show—says something real about the place. It was and still is a first for the community.
