Spartan

The renderings look nice. I'm a bit skeptical that this will be executed as nice as the renders, but i hope it works out. I stlil get a kick out of the idea that Reidville was fomred as a paper town to oppose development, and now they're getting what is basically a new downtown.

That's great! That's also the easy part. Getting from Lewis Chapel to Clifton is going to be tough.

Two thoughts: 1- Greer controls its water system and uses it proactively. Spartanburg does not control Spartanburg Water (though they are part of its oversight board). 2- Greer is annexing new development haphazardly. Its giving them large numbers now, but its financially unsustainable. Spartanburg is seeing much more high density development these days and encouraging infill projects and reinvesting in intown neighborhoods. Its two completely different situations. IMO Spartanburg is actually doing a good job addressing its problems proactively.

Interesting. I hope its just SFR. Townhomes would be weird in that location.

Seems cool but I feel like their ignoring the creek and floodplain that are down there. IMO the creek area should be dammed up to make a pond as the centerpiece of a park.

Duke will do it but only if the City pays for it.

If its a dedicated ped phase it will work fine. A leading pedestrian interval would work too. If its anything less than that it won't feel safe.

Small transit systems across the nation are experimenting with microtransit. There are some that are replacing their entire fleet with microtransit (eg: Gastonia). If you aren't familiar with the term -think uber/lyft but subsidized so its the same price as a bus. I would bet you that Spartanburg is going in that direction eventually.

Its good that they're taking the step to align the zoning code with the plan. Might be a first in Spartanburg!

I made this a new topic before I realized half of that last post is about the baseball stadium. So if anyone is watching this live, I'm going to move it back. This is the office building quote from westsider: "The office building received preliminary approval at the DRB meeting, with conditions on better addressing the West Main sidewalk width and the "arcaded" corner. Developers said it was a "speculative" office building, but they were "very confident" that would be filled quickly. They also mentioned wanting interior space flexibility for potential tenants. Make of that what you will."

There should be an ordinance that requires sites to connect to and extend the existing street network. I mean, they even have the space where the street should go just a few feet off of where the north/south street should go. Ugh. But its good density and needed housing so i guess its a wash. Don't get me started on the architecture lol.

I'm not a huge fan of the buildings, TBH. Modern/contemporary architecture in the core of our historic area is just ick. I still don't like the design, but I agree the latest one is an improvement.

People who want to pedestrianize Tryon Street - keep in mind that changing the design of Tryon Street won't change the lack of retail and restaurant space in uptown. A pedestrian/car hybrid street (called a woonerf design) could be a step in the right direction. But the fundamentals are not there for a pedestrian street. You need to have TONS pedestrians there first in order to make the new street design make sense. We still allow new buildings to be 2/3 lobby on the ground floor and can only figure out how to get 1 businesses in a 100 ft frontage. Until we have individual business entrances every 30-40 ft for the length of Tryon, it will never be anything more than it is. Most of the ground floor retrofits are pretty good, though. The independence building is a good example. We just need First Citizens, BofA Corporate, etc. to step up and join the club. IMO the lesson that should be learned from European cities is that buildings need to be built to be versatile and reusable so the market can adapt them as dynamics change. And smaller retail spaces = more creative uses of space along with smaller rents. Massive lobbies, massive high end restaurants, and massive buildings are not likely to produce the type of environment we want to see.

I hope this is going to be implemented with a ped wayfinding system that shows distances in MINUTES between locations.

Better? Yes. But still very meh. Its like the worse of 1995 architecture. Remember when banks were works of art? Technically none of us do... but there was a time...