mallguy

The Augusta Road Harris Teeter will be much closer than the downtown Publix, actually. I don't like navigating down Augusta in those narrow lanes and making a left turn. That's the mentality that led to the rise of Haywood and Laurens Roads and South Pleasantburg Drive and the original demise of downtown. If we want a great downtown, we shouldn't just have a "build whatever you want, wherever you want" vision; the outcome with that approach could be the Greenville of the 1980s, with sprawl and a ghetto downtown.

I'm still not seeing why it's necessary; I'd rather go to the downtown Publix than deal with micro-laned and crowded Augusta Road.

Exile, great points. I think that the Bell Tower Mall developers just totally missed the main trend in those days: suburbanization and the decline of downtowns. Perhaps data back then wasn't as accessible as it is today, but some of the things we saw back then just seem like really dopey ideas, like, "hey, we have a big Belk store downtown. Let's build one at McAlister Square too, just a few miles away, and keep both open. Let's also have one at Lewis Plaza, between the two. Let's open yet another one at Pleasantburg Shopping Center. That's 4 Belk stores in one half of a 3 mile radius from downtown. There's plenty of population density to support all 4, right?"

I grew up going to that Baskin-Robbins, too, and you're right. You're also right about the grocery stores. I recall watching the Winn-Dixie sign being taken down when the store closed; I was at the movie theater. I have no idea why anyone thought that it was a good idea to have a small mall in a bad area, not visible from a major street, anchored by 2 grocery stores and 2 discount stores.

Hopefully the retailers at the new development will be better than these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Tower_Mall Not one of them appeals to me now, and I am pretty sure that my family skipped over most all of them in the '70s in favor of McAlister Square.

Maybe a hybrid lifestyle center with lots of office, lots of residential and some retail space would be the best mix for this site, with the retail being outlet mall-type retail, like a Saks Off Fifth? As much as I don't care for outlet malls, they are where the growth in retail is these days, Greenville doesn't have an outlet mall (even Asheville now does) and perhaps the spaces could be transitioned to regular retail easily if the outlet concept doesn't work on the site.

County Square's mall building is slightly over 300,000 square feet. Is it all used as office space, though? I recall walking through it even after the county bought it and the interior mall corridor and vacant retail spaces were still there.

Office and retail generate way more property taxes for governments, generally, and consume a lot fewer government services, compared to residential areas, generally.

A real Target could easily fit on the site, with the same (or maybe a slightly larger) footprint as the Woolco building, which is still there. I'm also hoping for retail. It seems like plenty of national retailers will go downtown but they just need modern retail space to do so, and Main Street doesn't have that much new construction.

The perfect solution: Chick-fil-A at McBee Station! It's downtown and thus walkable from Main St., and it has plenty of parking and no risk of back-ups for a drive-through! Plus when Publix goes, the space could be demolished and rebuilt as a CFA and perhaps small store space. Problem solved!

CFA should go to the shopping center where Panera is and should take the old CVS space. Surely that could be reconfigured to have a drive-through, even though it wouldn't be a typical CFA format.

I've shopped at HTs for years, and Publix for years. Publix is rated at least equal to, if not more highly than, HT in all sorts of ratings,including in Consumer Reports. HT is a nicer store than Bi-Lo but the lower-income areas as you go further away from Augusta are more Bi-Lo type areas and their residents are likely well-satisfied by Bi-Lo, just as they are with the Church Street K-mart.

I still don't see why a Harris Teeter is needed there. The downtown Publix and the Bi-Lo near the hospital have served the area fine. I love Chick-fil-A but I also don't see why one is needed there,either; the McAlister Square and mini-downtown locations suffice. What will happen to Saluda River; will it close for good or move? I'd be very upset to lose that store.

Maybe, maybe not. Google "McBee Station Pazdan" and PDF file is available, showing McBee Station as being for sale. The file says that Publix has had strong sales growth each year and is well-above the chain's average. Its lease expires in 2027. Staples' lease expires in 2017. The file doesn't talk much about Staples. It must have performed decently enough to stay in business for 10 years but isn't a superstar, I'd guess. Either way, I see a TJ Maxx or Walmart Neighborhood Market coming to the Staples space in 2017. I have no knowledge whatsoever of that actually happening, but it's my intuition.

Great point. Couldn't the site be reconfigured for a "real" Target? Not sure if people would want to deal with a parking garage, but a "real" Target could fit on the site if parking were reworked. Maybe a Walmart Neighborhood Market (or an upscale version of one, if such a thing exists)?

Losing Staples is unfortunate. I'm guessing that the store has maybe a 10-year lease but is looking to find a replacement tenant so it can leave. A TJ Maxx would be a good replacement: an expanding retailer replacing a shrinking one. The site really needs destination retail or neighborhood convenience retail; a store that is neither won't make it there. I was also thinking that the Cheesecake Factory would have been a good addition to McBee Station but that's clearly not happening now.

So after 30+ years and tens of millions of dollars, this location finally has a shopping center that's successful?

The block where Addy's, Ink & Ivy are (all the way around the block, particularly the street parallel to Main and then back on North Street to Main) could be redeveloped to add a lot more retail and other space, and it could be charming. The street parallel to Main (Brown St.?) is small enough and has a few buildings along it that could be fixed up, and if more new construction was added to fill in the parking lots and ratty buildings in that block, it could be really quaint and extend downtown's high-traffic areas. Who's up for taking that lead on redeveloping that block?

GSP has got to get it together for business travelers and other frequent travelers if it really wants to capture the business that is lost to Charlotte and Atlanta. GSP is made for Lula Mae and Billy Bob from Pelzer who are flying to Orlando for their first flight in five years. It is not made for people who fly multiple times a month on business. Examples: * The ticket agents often seem to be outsourced agents who can't or won't handle any kind of ticketing issue with any kind of complexity. * There is no consistent security line for frequent travelers; there is finally a TSA Pre-Check line back, but it's open only sometimes, and there is no first class/elite ID check line before the regular security line. * Once you get through security, there are no kiosks (for upgrades, re-printing boarding passes, etc.). * At the gate, there are no monitors showing detailed flight info, standby lists, upgrade lists, etc. * The rental car agencies pay no attention at all to elite status and don't have any kind of "express" services for frequent renters, even though they have signs all over the place for "express" lines/service for elite members (which are disregarded). Come on, GSP!

Agreed. I'd think that (1) national chain retailers would want to locate in new buildings that fit their space needs better than 1920s or so buildings would and (2) people would want to look at building new buildings with retail in them, given the strong demand for retail downtown, rather than just apartment buildings. I wouldn't want to drive anyone out of business, but I'd like to have more national chains downtown, since those stores usually attract higher volumes of business. Even King Street in Charleston, with lots of high-end national chains, still has plenty of locally-owned stores on it, so there's always room for both, although I'd expect national chains to snag the better locations.

Price gouging? We finally have a downtown that attracts a lot of people, which in turn attracts stores and restaurants that do a lot of business and locate in prime areas and are willing to pay to do so. (E.g., Brooks Brothers and Anthropologie; how many other downtowns in Greenville-sized cities have those types of stores in them?) Thank goodness, in my view. If people want a lower-priced downtown, then let's return to, say, 1989. Rents were low then. They were low because the few stores that were downtown were, by and large, ratty, and there was very little if anything to draw paying customers downtown then.

I haven't been to those other airports, but by comparison to large airports (around NY, etc.) and even CLT, GSP is a dream airport: beautiful, not crowded and easy to use. I like it.

Here's what downtown needs, perhaps on the County Square site or closer to Main, in an area currently with parking lots and divey buildings: http://www.firstandmainhudson.com/ It looks like a brand-new downtown, built to look old, as an extension its city's existing downtown, and with store spaces that would fit additional national retailers. Just like Riverplace expanded downtown's core, so could this.

Thanks! I'd say that GSP is the nicest airport in the US, in terms of the airport design/appearance. Granite in the washrooms, not crowded at all, light and airy, sparking clean and new. Night and day compared to any NYC-area airport.

Thanks. I understand that the new security area is open; the TSA website, in its efficiency, doesn't show GSP as having TSA Pre-Check but does anyone know if there is actually a TSA Pre-Check line again at GSP?