B&R

The Bell Tower Mall wasn't successful and I doubt McAlister Square would have worked downtown either. The whole point of a regional mall is that it is out in the growing suburbs along major highways. The acres of free parking would be harder to find downtown and if you did find a spot then the mall would end up separated from the rest of downtown by acres of parking lots. Even if it worked it probably have sucked all the retail life from Main St. If Furman had stayed in downtown Greenville it would have been better for Greenville. Probably not better for Furman though.

Do 18-wheelers still roam the highways of America? That is their specialty.

Those bottom two pictures display an excellent view of the evolving Greenville skyline. A different angle than the usual views. They also show the new density in the west end with all the new apartment and condominium buildings. South Main street is looking more and more attractive as the trees grow.

I would prefer they keep the Greene statue on Main Street -. maybe near City Hall. It seemed appropriate to have the statues associated with Greenville's early history close together. Also, what will they do with Greene's small companion?

Greenville County was a little more than 1000 residents from 500,000 according to the Census estimate for July 1, 2016. The 500,000 milestone was probably reached in August or September of last year if the growth rate stayed the same.

Another hotel? Should we infer that despite several new hotels built and others announced that downtown needs more hotels?

Very nice looking project. Good to see some creative developments in the area.

Right, there was a problem with high school kids from the area cruising Main Street. They put up the barricades to discourage that. They also had a law that let the police ticket you for driving past the same spot three times in some set time frame.

I prefer this latest design.

A flattering article from the Chicago Tribune - http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/travel/sc-greenville-south-carolina-travel-0809-20160801-story.html "A river ran through it. Falls, too. But nobody noticed. Now the Reedy River Falls, and the park that surrounds it and the suspension bridge that spans it, are at the heart of one of the great smallish-town successes in the United States. Greenville, population 62,000, is very cool. Put it this way: If you were planning a drive to Charleston or Myrtle Beach or Hilton Head or any of the usual South Carolina suspects and only saw Greenville as a place to fill your tank and empty your bladder, you might want to tweak your itinerary a bit." -------------------------- The article makes the point the great improvement since the 1980s but does go a little overboard. There is the claim that you couldn't drive down Main Street because of the crime. Really? My dad had an office downtown then and I helped him out. It wasn't that bad from my own experience.

Found a quote from the article - When the Panama Canal opens up a new lane for bigger ships this month, much of the cargo they carry will be headed for this quiet corner of the Southeast, some 200 miles inland. In the past few years, the rolling hills and farmland surrounding Greenville and Spartanburg have given way to massive warehouses and industrial parks. Restaurants in Greenville, S.C.’s formerly neglected downtown cater to corporate managers and engineers from Germany and Japan. Trucks clog the two main interstates, carrying engine parts and finished goods to and from the region’s growing number of manufacturing plants. More development is on the way: over six million square feet of warehouse space is under construction in the Greenville-Spartanburg region, a scale typically seen in major cities like Philadelphia and St. Louis, according to CBRE Inc., a real-estate brokerage.

"Bill on the road" obviously liked his stop in Greenville - http://www.billontheroad.com/is-greenville-the-best-city-in-america/

A couple of days late on this, but, isn't the answer dependent on where it is built? There are places in Greenville where there would be no problems and others that might be tricky. Isn't the problem in Spartanburg due to the specific location?

That is bigger than I was expecting. It looks like the equivalent of around 15 stories from the Falls Street elevation lower end.

According to the link to WYFF4 that Gville2012 posted the answer is a big yes. There are now 876 existing hotel rooms downtown and the proposed new hotels would add 1,100 more.