Spartan
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Posts posted by Spartan
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On 4/25/2024 at 10:43 PM, Historyguy said:
Yes, some of us have been pushing pretty hard to get the city to hire a director of planning for a while. It's been unfair to have Martin Livingston carrying that portfolio while carrying his other duties, and I am looking forward to seeing what having a full time professional focused on planning can do for us. I'd asked, does the city want a bureaucrat or a visionary, and was told pretty directly that we want a visionary. I think there's still some staffing up to do in the planning department.
I had assumed a combination of Martin and Chris Story, both having planning backgrounds, were able to cover a lot of territory there, but I suspect they were both a bit overworked. I hope they are able to staff up a bit. There is certainly no lack of work to do from a planning standpoint.
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Yeah interest rates, construction costs, and the general state of the housing market + waiting to see what happens with the office market crash everyone is talking about. It wouldn't surprise me if this ones sits dormant for a long time.
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Wow that's huge news. That's a major win for Spartanburg County.
IMO, its more about opportunity than specific strategy. Milliken and Pacolet Milliken have a long history in the area and a commitment to environmental protection. It's great to see them choose to preserve this land instead of developing it like they've done with similar tracts of land in other places. There is so much development happening on the east side these days, its great to see that they are able to preserve this much land in an area that is sure to see a lot more pressure for growth in the near future.
The Central Park complaint makes sense. It's probably used because its the largest and most well known park in the US, and its very publicly accessible, but you're right it will never be anything like that in scope/scale/form/function.
For what its worth, My pet peeve is people calling it Lawson's Fork Creek. The correct name is Lawson's Fork. There's no "creek" involved. It's the same concept as Four Mile Branch. it's not a. creek, its a branch. Or, more formally, it was historically labeled as "Lawson's Fork of the Pacolet River."
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I think that's definitely on her to do list.
IMO, the downtown code is still solid. Given her background I would expect them to expand the form-based concept to the rest of the city - likely with the exception of the more suburban single family neighborhoods like Hilbrook, Camelot and what have you.
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On 3/24/2024 at 10:23 PM, westsider28 said:
Perhaps you didn't notice that I mentioned in my original post, "(btw, that's not a bike lane, but rather a buffer zone for door opening)".
There will be a curb-protected 2-way bike path on the south side of the street. It hasn't been started yet.
Ha, I did not notice that. Thanks for the clarification!
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Didn't see this mentioned anywhere, but the City of Spartanburg just hired a new planning director. It's been nearly 10 years since the last one left. Presumably Chris Story and Martin Livingston have been providing leadership in that area, but its exciting to see that they've hired someone to be solely focused on that job. I've not heard of hear before, but her varied experience, notably with a strong background in Urban Design, are a plus.
I hope that she will stay around a while and get to know the community.
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Gotta say I'm disappointed with the bike lane on EDMA. Bike lanes next to on street parking are notoriously dangerous for cyclists, and with a 35mph speed limit you won't see many causal riders. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they did it. Definitely a net positive and a step. in a positive direction.
Are they going to stripe on in the eastbound side?
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On 2/29/2024 at 6:28 PM, westsider28 said:
Most Eastside residential development coming to the large wooded lot south of the Daniel Morgan Technology Center on Zion Hill Road. Shown in the March 5 County Planning Commission agenda, Knights Landing is a 108-unit townhome development. It also shows a future ~250-unit apartment development next door. Developed by Crown Development. The projects will surround the existing home on the land, but not connect, because we have a broken land-use policy in the County...
This is contiguous to City limits, but I'm sure won't be annexed for some reason. This joins townhouses (57 units) and patio homes (126 units) on Plainview and the massive 570-unit Ellison residential development just up East Main.
This is just insane to me.
Also, the this is terrible land use planning (welcome to Spartanburg County, I guess). A a minimum the roads between the two lots should connect in the back. Ideally you'd have them stub atrets into that single family lot in the middle. It might take 20 yeays but it will turn over into more of the same eventually, then you have a neighborhood with a street network to build off of.
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The corer at Henry seems like a missed opportunity for something iconic. Put a clock tower or obelisk or something notable there... anything better than some bushes.
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Sugar n' Spice doesn't do it for ya?
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On 2/12/2024 at 1:48 PM, westsider28 said:
Looks like a Berkshire Hathaway realtor office has gone into 124 Magnolia Street (former selfie studio above Nacho Taco). Not a huge foot-traffic driver, but a good quality tenant.
For those more in the know than me... is this a relcation or a new office? Seems like Berkshire Hathaway taking an interest in Sparkle City would be newsworthy...
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IMO this highlights the biggest problem with Spartanburg County's development code. If you only build single entrance cul-de-sac subdivisions without requiring developers to help expand the street network you end up in situations where you are forced to make awkward fixes. Compound that with 30 years of deferred maintenance and underinvestment by our illustrious General Assembly and you get a wicked set of safety problems and over-engineered solutions.
I think the solution is partly there. Take the lefts away from Anderson Mill Rd to Reidville Rd by adding new connector streets to divert most of the traffic. Something like this:
Or better yet, do some actually planning and gradually make this a walkable village center with an actual street grid:
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On 12/29/2023 at 8:41 AM, mainonmain said:
Well you're going to be disappointed because that abomination is going somewhere else.
Also - you keep referencing tax dollars. Do you know which "tax dollars" are being used for this project?
Per westside's post above, the P&C states that it will be funded by hospitality tax dollars.
On 12/29/2023 at 8:41 AM, mainonmain said:Well you're going to be disappointed because that abomination is going somewhere else.
Also - you keep referencing tax dollars. Do you know which "tax dollars" are being used for this project?
Per westside's post above, the P&C states that it will be funded by hospitality tax dollars.
Re: clocktower - would like to see them spend some $$ (probably privately funded) to rebuild the clocktower to resemble the opera house spire that used to hold the bells.
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I'd like to see some interesting results from the downtown transportation study. Like a road diet on Church Street or DMA, etc.
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Unfortunately this is more or less inevitable. The days of wealthy people building their homes in prominent locations is long gone. We're fortunate to have a few remnants, but as the market changes, so must the city.
There are a few towns around that still retain this feature of prominent homes on primary streets (historically speaking). These are generally smaller towns that were fortunate enough to avoid the worst of the 50s-90s era of growth. Laurens is a really great example.
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Moved all of the W Main posts here!
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That corner with the steps is terrible. it is 100% possible to design that with the steps facing the corner. Every city in the world has traffic poles at intersections. It is not a difficult thing to design around. This is the kind of little detail that combined with hundreds of other obnoxious details around town makes being a pedestrian undesirable. IMO you design the building around the street entrance as well as the other functions it needs to include. In looking at the site plan and the render I'm not seeing any reason they couldn't have accomplished this.
Don't mean to come off like I'm all that upset. Still excited about the planetarium! I just wish there were more attention to details that matter. DRB is usually pretty good at getting those right. Would love to better understand what the issues were here.
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Wow we're getting a Thai Basil?? Did not expect that, much less this far out on East Main.
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It does indeed look like they are going to make the primary entrance on the side of the building. That is unfortunate. It's also unfortunate the W Main road diet won't extend this far. Maybe someday....
But still, I'm glad someone sees value in repurposing this old building rather than tearing it down.
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IMO the clocktower is now a part of our history. Like it or not, it is a landmark. Keep the tower - but the location doesn't really matter but I would prefer it to be highly visible to pedestrians, so somewhere on the Square would make sense.
I will say too that I am not a fan of the clocktower architecture. It's a super bland style that was popular in the 70s/80s and it hasn't aged well. I wouldn't hate it if they put a different roof or other slight modifications to make it less boring... but if given the option of removing it entirely or keeping it as is, I'll always say to keep it.
When you Google "spartanburg" images, the tower features prominently:
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The construction part of projects like these are always the worst because it feels like they're taking forever.
They haven't been working on it very long at this point, but keep in mind if there are complications on this section that railroad companies are notoriously difficult to work with in terms of project schedules.
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I love the DRB.
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My understanding is that SCDOT is generally not opposed to giving control to cities/counties, but there's a huge financial burden that comes along with road maintenance which is why local jurisdictions are less inclined to take control. Case in point: the $25 road fee was being used to repair bridges on County-maintained roads. You don't see the impact of that unless you live on the rural roads where the bridges actually are, but the County has to pay for some roads whether you like it or not (hence the property tax increase). Taking over control of SCDOT roads just adds to that burden. The General Assembly already fails to meet its constitutional obligation to disperse $$ to cities/counties as it is, so SCDOT is not likely to partner on projects on local streets that they don't control. Typically the only streets it would make sense to take over are in downtown main street type settings where SCDOT is real hit or miss with good design... and sometimes its a total strikeout.
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I'm excited to see that the tax passed. This is needed work, and I'm glad they're able to move forward with it. I am, however, interested to know why the County should be on the hook for repaving SCDOT roads. Is there some sort of partnership there? SCDOT has a lot of new $$ with the gas tax increase. I understand prioritization and it takes time to get through 30-40 years of deferred maintenance, but I would love to understand the nature of this, because it feels like we just dont want to wait - which to be fair is a perfectly good answer. I'd just like to see someone official say it if they havent.
New City/County Government Center
in Spartanburg
Posted
I hope that means they are going to build in the same place. I hope this will be a signature building from a design standpoint, rooted in classical design elements and not some modernist garbage like the old one.