chuckyvt

I'm typically a glass half full type of person, but could that parking garage look any worse? If the vision was a prison for cars, they succeeded.

I am really curious how much of the Facebook hate comes from folks that actually live in or near the city.

I want to say it was five townhomes? I kept hoping that somehow someone would come in and purchase that property to turn that old gas station into something like the universal joint. Obviously that didn't happen.

Greenville County council is dysfunctional is what happened. Basically waited until the day of the vote to decide to table it if i recall correctly. Some discussion of reviving it with the council.

Wow, that is an impressive sales price.

Well perhaps we need to start a YIMBY group to contour it.

I sent an email to my the city council rep for my district (Lilian Brock Fleming) and two at large (Dorthy Dowe and Russell Stall). Dorthy Dowe responded this morning, and I thought it was worth sharing here: "Thanks for reaching out to share your support for the Mosaic project. I do believe that property will ultimately be developed but I am not supportive of the proposal to rezone the parcels to C4 at this time. Rather, I believe the new Greenville Development Code (GDC) which we are expecting a draft of in the next two weeks should govern this area. The new GDC for these parcels should be based on the West End Small Area Plan that was adopted by Council in 2021, incorporating the vision of this area primarily as a “cottage precinct”. I appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective. -Dorothy Dowe" A cottage precinct doesn't sound like something that will significantly move the needle on the thousands of housing units Greenville is going to need in the coming years.

Perhaps we need to start a letter writing campaign to see if we can help get it approved?

The city staff recommended the planning commission recommend approval. Write your city council rep if you want to help get it approved.

The West End Small Area Plan released at the end of last year highlights reducing Pendleton to two lanes. Says coordination with SCDOT has started. See page 16.

Oof. Good point!

Here's my terrible quality PowerPoint sketch of what I had in mind. I get the chance of something like this happening is nearly zero, but its fun to be creative and think of what could be.

For vehicles, the sharp angle between South Main and Pendleton/Vardy restrictions sight lines and movement compared to a typical T intersection. Left turns are prohibited between South Main onto Vardry. Traffic from Vardry is permitted to turn right onto South Main, as long as you're able to make the sharp turn. For vehicles, perhaps ineffective is a better term for this intersection. For pedestrians, its terrible. I feel like I'm playing frogger with my family each time we cross. There is no pedestrian signaling, which is especially difficult at non-standard intersection, you're not sure which direction traffic is flowing at a given moment. Its especially pronounced crossing Vardry near the intersection. The way that traffic signal works, when you look and see red, you assume that means its safe to cross, but that is when traffic from Pendleton has a green light to continue straight onto Vardry.

On the Leach St project I think the developer probably agreed to do a traffic study as a compromise with the community to make sure they are checking all the boxes. The density isn't going up all that much, Ethel St is arguably underused, and has connectivity to Leach and Calhoun, so expect the traffic analysis to come back and say its ok. The community also has concerns tied to Ethel and Leach being poor streets without sidewalks, and that is absolutely valid. But the flipside is about the only way we're able to get sidewalks developed is to allow developers to build and require sidewalks as part of the project. Outside of downtown the city does a poor job of prioritizing and building sidewalks imho. For the potential Pendleton St redevelopment, its a similar story. Pendleton St is currently overbuilt/underutilized, as it used to be the main entrance into downtown from the west prior to Academy being built. The biggest issue for a development there would be that the South Main/Pendleton St intersection is a mess, and its proximity to Mallard compounds the issue. Perhaps something can be done to improve these intersections as part of the development there if it does materialize. As a side note, I think an interesting idea for this area would be to redirect/re-sign that one block segment of Anderson as South Main Street and close the section of Main St in front of Saint Paul UMC. That removes the poor S Main/Pendleton intersection. You could turn that closed section of Main St into a small pocket park, and perhaps some parking for the church and the business across the street. I'm sure it would be a battle to pull something like that off.

The planning commission rejected the proposal for townhomes at 111 Leach St. My favorite part of the planning commission meeting was this gem. Person that recently moved into a high end townhome in the neighborhood speaking out about all the issues caused by…….high end town homes being built in the neighborhood.