Exile

Hello, I've recently relocated to the Charlotte area, and I have a question about the expansion onto the old rental car facility grounds. There are several versions available on the internet, but I can't tell which one is the real deal. Is it going to be an independent structure with gates all around (and underground access), or connected to the terminal or concourse A, but with its own terminal (and so gates only on one side)? Or something else? Thanks.

If rental prices are rising, it's because demand for space justifies it. If someone's willing to pay the higher rent, then I say come on in. If landlords miscalculate and can't fill space vacated by tenants who don't want to pay the higher rent, then rates will come back down, and space will be occupied. It's only under rent control that landlords have been content--actually have been left with no other choice but--to let their properties stay vacant.

As I look at the Earth's-eye view of the Arena area, it strikes me that the stretch between the Arena and the Hyatt would make for a great convention/large-scale entertainment district. That is, but for the County Courthouse. If only the courthouse could be incorporated into some kind of retro-themed convention center (I assume it has historical significance), with something complementary on the gateway site, and connectors constructed all the way from the Hyatt to the arena. I haven't been in the Courthouse building in decades, so I freely admit that I really don't know what I'm talking about--just musing. On the other hand, given the likely impossible scenario I just outlined, how about this: I get more convinced as time goes on that the only way to rescue that orphaned gateway site is to reverse the way it was orphaned in the first place: the construction of Beattie Place back in the mid-70's. As far as I can tell, the only way to do that is to span Beattie with a large building, turning that portion of Beattie that separates the site from the Arena into a tunnel. Truck and auto access would then be via the arena side; tunnels or footbridges from the courthouse side. Any unused acreage (fronting EN Street) could be landscaped. Assuming that the convention center studies determine that Greenville can support a relatively large building, then maybe a convention center/hotel combo spanning Beattie is an answer. I understand the attraction of the Falls or West End. But I wonder if putting a convention center over there might overly tip the balance that downtown has achieved, especially given the News site development.

I like HT also, and I hope they learned their lesson last time. They only had two stores (I think) back in the 90's, one at Mauldin Rd and 291 and the other out near Foxcroft. Then they opened a much larger store on Roper Mtn at 385 and were pummeled by Publix within a couple of years. I suppose if it were a true competitor with Whole Foods they could come in on a smaller scale, though.

I don't in principle object to a Target on that site, but the urban Targets I'm familiar with have a pretty big footprint, even the double-decker ones. Is the site really big enough for something like that and a hotel, offices, plaza, other retail, etc.?

Either way. A good development would blend into the park. Anything but a parking garage.

Not sure if this is exactly what you meant, but it would really be great to *tear down* that parking garage. Having a garage fronting the river right above the falls strikes me as a bit ridiculous, given what's happened since it was built. Think of it: the News site development with a major entrance that has an unobstructed view of the river, over the garage site that's been annexed to the park. Not likely any time soon, I suppose. But what if....?

The site might not be worth millions if it's not worth building on. If that were the case, then the owners might be happy to get anything out of it. I suppose that, having bought it in 2008 (according to the News article), they thought they were getting it cheap. But maybe it's just a bad site. It's across the street from a courthouse, an arena, and a historic church/graveyard, which means that the city's not going to grow to or around it in any meaningful way. And access is terrible, even for pedestrians, as greenjoesc noted. Seems to me that the only real potential is as some sort of complement or adjunct to the Arena, particularly because a wide footbridge already exists there. Or, some enterprising entrepreneur could build over Beattie Pl. Who knows? In the meantime, plant the trees.

If it's too difficult to build on, then I think the park idea is good. Maybe put the mother of all statues (Greenville statues, of course) in the center, or something taller, like an obelisk. Or maybe Greenville's run out of money for monuments? Too bad the Wilkins house couldn't have been moved there. Is there irony in the fact that the street construction that required the destruction of the Carolina Theater 40-odd years ago has now orphaned such a prominent location? Is there a higher elevation in downtown? If so, not by much, I would guess.

Just out of idle curiosity, and too lazy to look through the forum, did the Gateway Site ever get any serious consideration as a spot for a convention center? I'm looking at Google Earth, and it seems to me that it's a natural: proximity to the Arena and to the Hyatt (kind of like the way the Marriott Marquis, Hilton, and Hyatt in Atlanta combine forces); with the potential (perhaps) of putting a hotel next to it, say across from Liberty Square (if there's enough room between the Church Street and the garage). Conventions I've been to in larger cities sometimes required a lot more effort than parking at the Arena and walking across a bridge would. I am living elsewhere now, but I don't recall ever hearing mention of the possibility.

I used to get annoyed by SC's restrictive annexation laws. I wanted to see big-city numbers (or at least bigger numbers) for Greenville. But then relatives of mine in another city got absorbed into a municipality against their will and with no real recourse, only to have their property taxes essentially double, with no discernible improvement in "services." I now see merit in SC's way of doing things, insofar as it seems (unwittingly?) to protect the property rights of individuals. And anyway, why care about city-population figures? Atlanta does pretty well with a city population at less than 10% of metro. Orlando, where I live, is comparable.

Granting what you say for the sake of argument, did Southwest not do the same thing when it came to town? Is it OK for Southwest to undercut its competition, but not vice versa? I'm not inclined to view the "legacy" carriers as operating in cartel fashion, which is what you seem to be suggesting. On the contrary, they're all competing with each other (at least where they overlap), and GSP travelers are benefiting from the competition. But if what you suggest were to come to pass, what of it? If someone must fly, Charlotte (e.g.) is easy to get to, particularly for Spartanburg travelers. Under those circumstances, I might choose to fly into Charlotte instead of GSP, which would be a bit inconvenient (but give me an excuse for eating at the Beacon!). That is to say that the consumer is still sovereign. If GSP travelers really objected to higher fares, they would bid the prices down by going elsewhere or by choosing other forms of transportation. However, It seems pretty obvious to me that fares at GSP have historically been higher because most of its traffic is business-related, and businesses who are flying their representatives all over the place are not as price-sensitive as, e.g., vacation-travelers are. That said, I am not inclined to be skeptical about Southwest's longevity at GSP. They know how to compete as well as their competition does, and are probably financially in a better position to do so. I have to believe that they factor all these variables into their decision to enter a market in the first place. The only potential achilles heel I could see for them is their reliance on 737's. Unless Air Tran brought a lot of smaller jets along with them into the merger, Southwest can't easily shift to planes more appropriate to a lower-than-expected demand. As for the airport expansion, that seems pretty clearly speculative, and not an accommodation to the Southwest effect. So GSP travelers will indirectly bear that cost no matter what Southwest does. But again, on the (good?) assumption that GSP's management knows what it's doing, then there must be potentially other opportunities presented by such an expansion.

Well, according the Southwest, the market isn't there for certain routes. And the load factors that were shared in an earlier post on this thread were not all that encouraging for the others, though it would surprise me if the Chicago routes were losing money.

I can think of only three ways for Greenville (Spartanburg, Anderson) travelers to "smarten up," if I understand your comment correctly: 1) start flying more; or 2) quit driving to Charlotte (or elsewhere; though I can't imagine driving to Atlanta to fly) and originate here in GSP; or 3) shift from other GSP carriers to Southwest. But nobody's going to (or should) just start flying to keep an airline in town, whatever its perceived benefits; and if people are in fact still going to other airports, its because they perceive a better deal there (driving included). If Southwest hasn't pulled them away from that option, then its not likely that any airline will, and who am I to second-guess them on how they travel?; and the third option is a wash as far as GSP traffic is concerned and could harm other carriers (which isn't a good thing for competition either). It may be that GSP, particularly given the ease of getting to Charlotte, just doesn't have the market to support Southwest's particular connections and destinations, even Chicago (yet?). I hope not, but if the demand isn't there... And unlike other carriers, Southwest can't shift to smaller jets (not significantly smaller, anyway).

Hello all, I was reading this recent article in the News about renewing West End visibility and am looking at a Google Earth image of it, but realized I don't know the exact boundaries of the West End. Can anyone help me out? How far from the river does the West End extend? Thanks.

Actually, Portland is sandwiched between Manchester, NH (served by Southwest and very close to Maine) and Bangor, which has a respectable airport that used to be a stopover on translatlantic flights in the way-back-when, I guess kind of like Anchorage was (is?) in the Pacific. I don't recall the distances, since it's been over a decade since I've been there, but Portland's geographic relationship to Manchester and Bangor is probably comparable to Columbia's relationship to GSP and Charleston (without the common coastline, of course).

http://camperdown.southcorpinc.com/%20Urban%20development

I agree entirely. And the RJ's can fly just as high and fast as the big jets, though not nearly as far. Though I haven't flown through GSP in several years, and only once in the last 10 years, I view the air traffic issue there the same way I view the skyscraper issue downtown. It's better to have a lot of 60-90 seaters flying in and out all the time, with a few of the 737's here and there; than to have the occasional big-jet traffic that GSP had only 20 years ago. All the international investment already established in the area ensures that GSP will never be relegated to a mere commuter airport. What is the biggest passenger plane that flies into GSP? 757? How about the biggest cargo plane? They extended the runway so that they could land 747 cargo planes loaded with BMW engines. Are they doing that now? And, on a completely different subject, what is that "Warn 0%" under my screen name on all my posts? Am I on probation or something? Wha'd I do?

I noticed on the airport's web site that, of the dozens of daily departures, only 8 (by my count) are in Boeing/MD/Airbus type equipment. Lot's of 60-90 seat CRJ's (which I love), ERJ's and similar aircraft. US Air equipment isn't listed, but I imagine many of those are big planes, too. My travel nowadays pretty much always puts me on one of the big planes. My question is, at GSP are you able to board those planes through the boarding bridges, or do you have to walk outside, Fred Flintstone-style? At Dulles and BWI, you have to walk outside, but I always assumed it was because of how busy those airports are in general.

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