Exile
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Posts posted by Exile
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9 hours ago, StrangeCock said:
LOL I have to say, I'm impressed you've been holding on to that for more than a year.
Every city has its problems. But not every city has certain national media outlets OBSESSED with its problems. It's a little creepy, but flattering, I guess? I still love Greenville, but would make the same move again 100 times out of 100. Portland is an amazing city and I won't even begin to count the innumerable reasons why it's better.
And since this is the airport thread, I feel I like I should mention that our gorgeous new $2 billion airport renovation is about to open.
I don't know anything about living in Portland, but I've stayed in Timberline Lodge and skied on the first day of summer on Mt. Hood. An absolutely beautiful place. And volcanoes are cool (until they erupt, of course).
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That tower/pavilion must be a nod to the old train station?
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"Greenville Theater". Is it no longer the "Little Theater"?
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21 hours ago, vicupstate said:
Wasn't sure where to put this but thought this thread was appropriate.
I wonder how feasible it would be to turn this property into a residential project that would contain a significant affordable housing component. I worked in this building for years and know it well. The floors have few interior walls as most floors were cube farms. I would estimate 155-170 units could fit into the 189k SF of space. Plus the parking requirements would probably be lower than office use, thus some of the 13+ acres could be used for a new construction building, perhaps including some retail. I was thinking where the Pleasantburg 'bend' meets Edwards Rd. There is already a fitness center that could serve as an amenity for the residents. There is a nice spot for a pool in the back too. The property is listed as $13.7 million ($72 a foot) but it has been on the market for years and you could probably get it for a least a little lower than that. It could be annexed into the city without difficulty and thus boost the city tax base. This part of town is not an office submarket at all and I think that is one reason why it has been vacate so long. I don't know if this is classified as Class B or C, but we have too much of both and taking 189k SF out of the market would be helpful. There is a great space for a mural that would face Wade Hampton too. The buildings are bland but it really wouldn't take that much to dress up the exterior IMO.
Does anyone know anything further about this property as far as anyone looking at it in the past? What is the likelihood that my idea would pencil out, keeping in mind that property tax abatement would probably be a given.
Just based on its appearance from above, and not any other considerations, my first thought is hospital campus.
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2 hours ago, distortedlogic said:
Knoxville is much more isolated than GSP, and is a tourist destination in it's own right. It's about twice as far from AVL as GSP is; they're what, an hour apart? I'm a bit surprised about Chatt, but then again, its probably a couple hours from ATL and Knoxville. Fair or not, all 3 of those cities are much more well known than Greenville and are bigger tourist draws. Tourist areas are the places Allegiant tends to serve the most. Greenville tourism has grown a lot over the past decade but still lags the other 3. Having said all that, I still think GSP is undeserved.
As for the airport leadership; I honestly don't know enough about all that, as a layperson, to adequately assess their performance, but I doubt they don't care. As residents, we know GSP could support more service, but we always have the ATL/CLT issues and are surrounded by peer cities that are more well known than us. Columbia, even though it has less service, is still a state capital with USC and is better known than us; then the tourist juggernauts of MYB and CHS a little further out. GSP and CAE really have some significant challenges when it comes to competition for services, and CAE is even in a worse spot than we are, and it shows in their service levels.
When we lived in Orlando, we used to fly Allegiant out of Orlando to go on vacations in other places, e.g., skiing in the northeast. I don't know if that's a significant market for Allegiant or not, but LV has over 2 million people, so it wouldn't surprise me if there's a market for cheap flights out of LV to places like Kville and Chattanooga, etc., which are bigger tourist draws than GSP.
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4 hours ago, distortedlogic said:
The grand strand does nothing for me. Give me Hunting Island; now thats a beautiful beach!
Winyah Bay is the official southern boundary of the Grand Strand. I put Litchfield, Pawley's & "Debbuh Doo" up against any residential beach that isn't at the foot of a mountain.
As for Hunting Island, I've never been there, but I imagine it's gorgeous, at sunrise especially.
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Bocelli is a big deal, but I imagine he draws more women than men.
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1 hour ago, PuppiesandKittens said:
The exterior is ugly. It’s a 45+ year old, dated building. A first-rate tenant (prominent law firm, bank, etc.) won’t want to have that as its office. It’s pretty common to take older office buildings, just leave the frame and totally redo the interior and exterior, or at least to redo the exterior to make it modern.
Also, the building has an odd floor layout. A tenant may want a larger floor space with a different layout.
Either way, a developer will want to maximize future profits and this building would need to be changed significantly to do that.
It was gimmicky from the beginning, because all (as far as I know) First Federal branches were built in the same shape. As if there were no other way to know you were at a 1st Federal branch. I worked in that building for a time, and it was a bit toward the claustrophobic, especially compared to American Federal-now-Prisma, which was (still is?) open and spacious.
Idle speculation, but I wonder if they did go for a gutting, if you could cost-effectively build the "missing" superstructure to make it rectangular? Truist across from Haywood Mall is one of those buildings, whose shape has been corrected (note the mismatched brick). But that's just one floor, of course.
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18 hours ago, vistatiger said:
I was going to say may have been an A&P or a Big Star. Both grocery stores were big in Atlanta even into the late 80's. Not sure if Greenville ever had a Big Star. I slightly remember when I visited Grans Big Star having a store in Greenwood. I believe it was located in the same plaza as an Edwards in Uptown Greenwood.
There were two other A&P's that I knew of: at the south end of Lake Forest Shopping Ctr and on Easley Bridge Road at White Horse Rd. They pulled out of Greenville all at once by 1973 at the latest. Probably earlier.
For years those two buildings were recognizable as former A&P's by the cupola on the roof.
Don't know anything about Big Star.
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1 hour ago, PuppiesandKittens said:
Edward's, which was eventually bought by Walmart, on the upper level. Winn-Dixie on the bottom level.
Woolco was on the other end, towards Augusta Road.
I have a distinct memory of there being a WD and an A&P side by side on the lower level of the Bell Tower Mall, facing the movie theater.
This would have been back in the day when grocery stores weren't large. Roughly the size of a current-day CVS or Walgreens.
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2 hours ago, clemsonfan said:
I get frustrated with gman430 too, I think his overall negative attitude toward Greenville is ridiculous (and so do all the people and businesses who are flocking here) and I get really annoyed when I think there is some new news I get excited to click on and instead he wastes my time with at "This is dead. Sad." post. However, I think he puts a lot of effort into researching what's going on in this town and provides invaluable information to the board. Also, he's welcome to his opinion, however much I disagree with it, and I think it's better to engage, debate, and try to persuade people who disagree with me than tune them out. All of that said, knowingly and willfully posting false information really is a serious transgression. Can you provide examples of his having done this and your evidence that if he did it wasn't an honest mistake?
And nice, high-res drone shots cover a multitude of sins. Though I haven't seen any of late.
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8 hours ago, gman430 said:
I never understand why developers waste money tearing down trees on site then just leaving it like that afterwards. Makes no sense. If you don’t have proper bank financing, why the heck are you starting construction in the first place? Reminds me of the Peacock and Pinnacle.
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18 hours ago, GvilleSC said:
As stated numerous times before, this is a VERY complicated project with a lot of stakeholders to wrangle together.
A lot of the complaining and comparisons on here are based on some obscure idea that things just happen slower in Greenville. That is not true. Simply seeing construction in other places still ignores the fact that it took time (years) and delays for those projects to reach that point. This project in Raleigh took time to conduct studies, time for ideas to be floated, time to lobby the governing bodies for their support, time for plans to be drawn, etc. Let us not forget the reality of the situation simply because we want to see construction.
Yes. And it's not at all unlikely that there are people in smaller nearby cities who are envying the way Greenville gets things done---Camperdown, One, numerous apt. buildings, etc.--that they want but can't get done.
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Other than that Bloom on S. P'burg, this is the last freestanding grocery store I can think of. I imagine nobody does that anymore?? Well, Aldi & Lidl are exceptions. I guess I mean big boxes.
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^^^This is correct. It was originally an HT. Built ca. 1996. Our main grocery store till we moved away in '97. Had a humidor and a great beer selection (this was before Total Wine).
However, I recuse myself from any Gman controversy.
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https://www.coworkingcafe.com/blog/the-best-cities-for-the-class-of-23/
Not *about* Greenville, but Greenville is prominently mentioned in this article that was just posted in the Charlotte forum. It's listing of the best places to begin a career after college, based on several criteria, including "leisure establishments/100k population." Greenville stands out as scoring huge in leisure establishments compared to just about everybody else except for Fort Lauderdale. What accounts for this?
Also, it is odd to me that Raleigh counts as a large city, while Pittsburgh is mid-sized. Apparently only looking at population within city limits. But if so, then it's leisure establishments within city limits, which makes Greenville's numbers even more interesting.
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I flew "around" a tornado-laden thunderstorm on some sort of prop-jet thing. This was decades ago. Man o man, can I tell you about wind shear. By my count, about 80% of the people on the flight threw up, including the flight attendant. For real.
Never again.
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Whatever else may be the case, the westward-facing side of that center (i.e., E. North to your left as you walk out the door, and the old Fresh Market off to your right across the parking lot) was most certainly a Rose's in the 70's and into the early 80's. I shopped there frequently when I was in college and before. It may have been replaced by WalMart before the latter went gargantuan. If so, that happened after I moved away.
Incidentally, there are still Roses around the CLT area, but they are a pale shadow of what they were back in the day.
And yes, Gman430, my memory goes back into the 60's, though I suspect Cabelagent's goes back even farther.
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23 minutes ago, vistatiger said:
Are you sure there was Walmart at North Hills? I don't remember that. Maybe it was a Sky City or Rose's. There was an Ingle's across the street on that block at one point I thought. I'm surprised Food Lion did not take over that location from Bi-Lo when they announced the locations they were acquiring.
It was Rose's.
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26 minutes ago, PuppiesandKittens said:
What on earth has happened to the Pleasantburg Drive/Mauldin Road intersection?
In the 1970s through the mid-1990s, it was fine, with a Family Mart and then a Bi-Lo at one corner, and a Bi-Lo and then a Harris-Teeter and a Revco (I think) at the other corner, and a Blockbuster Video and other mid-tier restaurants nearby. It wasn't the fanciest place, but people on East Parkins Mill Road would definitely go there for groceries and errands.
Now it's nothing but weekly-stay motels and pawn shops.
What happened? Where do people on East Parkins Mill go now?
Back in the 70's and I guess earlier, very close to that intersection was Ye Olde Fireplace and another restaurant next door whose name I can't remember. Also Shakey's Pizza. Maybe that's what you were thinking when you mentioned mid-tier restaurants. Food Lion also opened one of their short-lived Blooms nearby.
To attempt an answer to your question, though, I know a lot of people from that area gravitated over to Publix at McAlister Squ. Harris-Teeter's abrupt pullout of Greenville when Publix came in undoubtedly had something to do with that.
And I assume the former BiLo at Laurens & Verdae (which is E. Parkins Mill extended) siphoned off traffic, too. Mauldin & P'burg always was grocery-store-heavy, at least from the time the Family Mart was built.
But you're right. It's light-years different than it was back in the day.
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7 hours ago, apaladin said:
Gman430 brings a lot here including info, research and pictures. We need Gman430.
Amen. The drone shots alone more than compensate for any annoyance.
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10 hours ago, gman430 said:
^Just another reason why we need Boston air service.
I told somebody from Pittsburgh once I lived in Greenville and they thought I was referring to Greenville, North Carolina.
Of course this was twenty years ago though. I am sure the city is more well known now nationwide
That's interesting, because, starting in the late 70's, I've had a succession of friendships or acquaintances with people who relocated to Greenville from Pittsburgh. Anecdotal, but it has seemed to me there's been a pipeline.
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9 hours ago, gman430 said:
It still begs the question though: how was Huntsville able to land Breeze and Asheville able to land JetBlue along with SunCountry but not GSP? Tourism or not those metro areas are a lot smaller than Greenville-Spartanburg. I feel like our local leaders aren’t doing enough to land new air service. Why are no tax incentives being offered for new service? The cities and counties in this area offer it all of the time for new companies to locate here and create jobs. Isn’t that the same thing these airlines would be doing if coming here?
AVL's attraction is obvious. Huntsville is in the exact opposite situation that GSP is in. No hubs anywhere near, the only airport in north AL, and it's located in a way that it can bleed off traffic from BHM, BNA, and maybe even some from CHA. But even so, it only has half the traffic of GSP. It won't be surpassing GSP anytime soon.
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5 hours ago, gman430 said:
It could be worse. Imagine living in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, or Columbia. I was looking at Birmingham, Alabama and their airport isn’t much different than GSP in terms of airlines and destinations served. I’m still worried about name recognition when it comes to Breeze. If it is them, I expect the airport to launch a major advertising campaign which would definitely help.
Wait…did I just defend GSP?
What distinguishes GSP from all those airports that you mention is the fact that GSP is hemmed in on two sides by fortress hubs that are both pretty easy to get to. Heck, when I lived in Concord, I once drove past CLT to take a flight from GSP because my wife found me a much cheaper deal (this was before the I-85 construction, of course). Yes, it did afford me the opportunity to visit family, but it at least points up the fact that it's really easy to travel up and down the Piedmont.
Add in up-and-coming AVL, which is going to drain off some degree of potential traffic.
Is there another airport with comparable challenges? Maybe in the northeast, or maybe Grand Rapids (but it's not as close to ORD). I'd say that under the circumstances GSP is doing pretty dang well.
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Of course this was twenty years ago though. I am sure the city is more well known now nationwide 
Unity Park (New 160 Acre West End Park)
in Greenville
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A quick circle around the tower site on Google Earth reveals terrain anywhere from 50 to 90 feet higher. Add an average of, say, 40 feet for trees, and there's a 90 to 130 foot barrier around the tower. And of course, there are a few trees in S.C. that are taller than the tower itself. Anyway, I guess it depends on what sights they want you to see. The park itself, skyline, Paris Mountain, maybe the tops of the highest Blue Ridge that are visible. Not much else, it seems. But if that's all that matters, OK.