sc smitty

If their goal was a horrible rip off of the arts and crafts style, then they nailed it.

"Uninspiring" is putting it nicely. Hope the DRB demands a little better than this.

Every time I pass by the Ayers shop, I think how nice it would look to open up the original façade. Glad to see it finally happening. It's refreshing to see an architect bring back some classic details for a change, rather than doing the usual modern "update" that will look dated in a few years.

New retail space is going in to match the Starbucks / Zoe's Kitchen side. The new buildings will have entrances facing both Augusta and the interior side of the development, with all parking on the interior, and landscaped space replacing the old asphalt on the street side. The LA Nails building will be incorporated as well.

Hopefully, there's no way the city would let them tear down the historic building, only to replace it with a building that has 3 levels of parking at street level at the corner of Falls & Broad. Looks to me that the rendering shows the new building in the existing SunTrust parking lot. It appears to be looking from between the church and SunTrust Building, toward the back of the newer EP building. The arrangement of the 3 arched windows in the middle of the EP building only appears on the back elevation. On the side elevations, the arched windows only appear in groups of 2.

Great, because we don't have enough open parking lots downtown. Hope this one gets turned down.

This looks terrible. It's just crammed on the site without any thought how it looks as part of the streetscape.

Good, I'm not crazy about the design either. They are proposing a gated entrance, which does not meet current city codes.

The cylinder tower strikes again

I had noticed the 'condemned' sign for a while now. I thought it was strange, as the building did not look in bad shape from the exterior. It appears this is outside of the official boundary of the West End historic district, but it's still part of the Central Business District, so I thought that it would require DRB approval for demolition?

The large billboard on the corner of Church St & University Ridge came down yesterday.

After taking a look at these plans, I'm very disappointed in what's being proposed. The building and site is not very pedestrian friendly to say the least. Retaining walls surround the site, the worst one being a 12' tall wall along the sidewalk, facing the corner of Church St and Rose Ave. Looks like something that would be fine for a suburban development, but nothing like what the master plan intended. I will be attending the planning meeting this Thursday to say something. Hopefully the city will want something better than this.

And removal of a newly planted street tree. I would think it could be moved slightly to work with the existing streetscape.

I was disappointed to read this article. It would be a shame to tear this house down. If it is in bad condition, it is because the owner has neglected any maintenance for years. I'm sure plenty of people would be interested in redeveloping this house for use as a business, bed & breakfast, etc. At the very least, it would be nice if it could be moved rather than demolished. I guess this is outside of the DRB/ CBD review area, so they wouldn't need permission to tear it down.

Overall this looks pretty good to me. Like others have said, I think Parcel B needs to have a little more interaction with Church St. Would be nice to have another parking garage at the rear, instead of surface parking, but it's probably a cost issue.

I agree. I keep hoping that it will look better as it gets finished, but so far I'm pretty disappointed in the look of the building. Very boring design and a blank wall facing Augusta St.

Yeah, because we don't have any qualified local architecture firms around here that can design a bank. Way to support our local business. Maybe we'll end up with another bare concrete mine shaft like they're putting up downtown.

Which is more of a safety issue, a car running into a light pole, or a 20' tall light pole falling over after a car runs into it?

I've been a little disappointed too in the quality of the finished product. I rode down the bike lane for the first time last week. The bike lanes seem very narrow considering the amount of traffic on the road. The right vehicle lane is much wider than the one on the left, so I don't see why the bike lane couldn't be wider instead. It was not very comfortable riding a bike on such a busy street with cars and trucks blowing by so fast. I only live a block away, but I don't think I'll be biking this street very often. I'll probably just keep riding on Jones or McDaniel to get down to the park. Overall it's better than before, but a lot of things could have been done nicer.

Here's another great quote from today's Greenville News: “I don’t agree with road diets,” said John Edwards, who represents the Greenville area on the state Transportation Commission and who said he intervened on the idea. “I think we’re tasked with keeping the roads to move people, and trucks and cars. I don’t think it’s a place for bicycles because I think it’s dangerous.” It's sad that people like this are in charge of our road system. I hope these short-sighted people don't end up stopping a project like this. Seems like a great idea to me for a road that does not have heavy traffic.

So were most people in the neighborhood opposed to Walmart coming? What bothers me the most about this plan is not the fact that it's Walmart (although I'm not a big fan of Walmart to begin with), but how the plan is being described (100k sf, flattened site, etc.) After all the work that has been put into the master plan for this area, and the work being done on Church St, whatever is built here should fit with the master plan. I would love to see something along the lines of McBee Station. I might not even mind a smaller Walmart if it were something the size of Publix (about 30,000sf). I really hope the plan as it's being described right now goes nowhere.

A large monument sign for Verdae is being built on that corner, as well as another on the corner of Verdae & Woodruff.

They neglect to mention that while the new building is taking up a portion of the existing plaza space, the development is giving up property in other areas to make the plaza bigger. In the end the plaza space will be the same, if not larger. My only complaint about the development is the heavy use of precast concrete panels. I would have hoped that the building would have a little more architectural interest.

As it exists right now there is a concrete median everywhere but at the side streets, so you already can't make a left turn at businesses like Zaxby's. I think the goal of any new development is to have buildings closer to the street with rear parking accesses from the side streets rather than directly off Church St. The latest plan I saw still shows left turn lanes at most of the side streets except for Rose, Chapin, and Crescent. I'll take the planted medain over a left turn lane wherever possible.

The Swamp Rabbit Trail is trying to get a $250,000 grant for trail improvements. See the info below to help vote for the project. "We made the cut, now we need your help to get them to cut a check. The Greenville Hospital System Swamp Rabbit Trail is in the running for $250,000 to improve the trail. This is what you need to do: • Go to www.refresheverything.com/swamprabbit • When you click “Vote for” it will either get you to log back-in or get you to do a couple steps to create a log-in • If you have registered before it will take you back to our grant page and then you can click “Vote For” and it will say “Sweet” to show that you vote counted • If this was your first time on the site, find our grant by typing “Swamp Rabbit” in the search box in the upper right corner of the page VOTE EVERY DAY!!!, thanks! Let me know if you have trouble voting. There is also a way to vote from your phone. As always thanks for the tremendous support for the GHS Swamp Rabbit. With your vote we could get some cash to make the GHS Swamp Rabbit even better."