greenfield

What it means

1. attributiveoftenA site, to be used for housing or commerce, whose previous use (if any) was agricultural.

   greenfield development

   1 more example

   In 2007 Mr Gilbert [Dan Gilbert] made the then remarkable decision to move Quicken Loans’ suburban headquarters downtown. Mr Gilbert says that the initial thinking was humdrum—the firm’s lease was expiring, the business was growing, and he didn’t want to build a new greenfield campus. But he also had a bigger idea in mind. “We needed to keep young people here [in Michigan] and make sure they weren’t going to places like Chicago,” he says. “We knew that young people did not want to work in suburbs.”

   2025 October 15, The Economist staff, “A billionaire has rebuilt downtown Detroit. But might Dan Gilbert’s project finally run out of steam?”, in The Economist

In a sentence

greenfield development

Where it comes from

From green + field.