flotown

It's been a while since I've posted, but I'll add some recent photos of downtown. Some of the pics were taken on the fly, thus some window glare. The new TownHall restaurant on the refurbished Dargan/Evans corner is a huge improvement over the pink monstrosity it replaced Evans Street. Fiasco italian restaurant is on the right. New FMU Medical Sciences Bldg on right Cheves St looking west. New McLeod building on right. The McLeod campus now extends up to Kemp St New Judicial Center going up across from the County Complex New apartments on the corner of Irby & Cheves

Between work, new computers & other reasons it's been over 5 years since I've posted here. I'll try to update more often. Took a few low quality pics from my broken phone camera of work being done on the Evans/Dargan storefronts. They're all pretty much gutted inside.

Some recent shots of the FMU Performing Arts Center under construction. Click to enlarge on the pan shots. ENLARGE ENLARGE ENLARGE Palmetto & Dargan Irby & Palmetto, with the site of the old motel now an empty lot. Walgreens was originally supposed to build a store on the site, but they appartently backed out. ENLARGE Finally, here's a shot from Dargan Street, facing north with FMU-PAC construction ahead on the left.

Great pics (even though they took forever to load on a high speed connection). I made the mistake of viewing them on the mobile version with no image reduction. Love that zoom lens on the camera. Makes me want to upgrade (my camera & my computer).

Here are some pics of the FMU performing arts center under construction. The building site is huge, forming an L-shape around the bank at Irby & Palmetto. I believe the building will face Dargan, with side entrances on Palmetto and Cheves. Dargan St at Cheves looking north. Notice the new Thai restaurant on the right, which actually does decent business in the evening (at least on weekends) The restaurant and antique shop next to it are a big improvement over what was there. There's an art gallery in the old Kimbrells building, which is great. The exterior still needs a lot of work, but it's an improvement Finally, here is St Johns Episcopal church grounds, directly across from the arts center construction site on Dargan. Possibly Florence's finest aesthetic treasure. So things are coming along on the southern end of Dargan. Past the restaurant & the art gallery, however, things have changed little up Dargan & on the 100 block of Evans St. Uninviting slum is doing it justice. Plenty of boarded up and run down buildings, as well as loud, sloppy street characters hanging around the social club on Dargan, and thumping music blaring from parked cars.

Reconfiguring the awkward curve on Beltline to ease the upcoming glut of traffic that supercenters bring Finally, typical Irby Street sprawl

The Village at Coit low rent housing development is coming along From Darlington Street, looking west Looking east Looking north Coit Street, looking south. Still not the most desirable part of town. There's a run down Sav-Way across Coit ....and the infamous Hubcap Shack on the corner across the street. Rumor is they're selling more than hubcaps Development on Beltline Drive across from West Florence. The controversial Super Wal-Mart, which was delayed due to lawsuits, is almost completed.

I haven't been here in a while. I thought I'd post some recent pics from around Florence. Here's an artists rendering of a "potential" future Dargan Street Corridor Here's a pan of that corridor today The Florence Downtown Development Corporation is trying to transfer buildings along this strip to the corporation, including 117, 119 and 129 (old Carolina Theatre). It already owns the old Royal Knight building on the corner. Good to see some progress is being made. The pic and info courtesy of the News Journal. The eyesore House of Louie, at the corner of Palmetto & Irby, was torn down in May. No plans for the site as yet. This particular photo downplays the busy intersection it really is. The intersection of Palmetto & Coit. The historic old gas station, which was most recently a restaurant, was the victim of arson in the spring, and has not reopened. The threat of arson is one of many reasons businesses have been reluctant to locate downtown. The historic Hamilton House on Dargan, which was partially burned down last year, IS being restored. The abandoned, decrepit Heritage, motel was finally demolished in July. Good riddance. Here's the motel where it bordered Coit St The Little Theatre is almost completed, and looks great. The first production will be "Jesus Christ Superstar". Cheves & McQueen

Man, I've been away for 3 months and only 4 posts in the interim. Where is everybody? Anyway, here are some pics I took this week of some downtown construction sites. First, the land has been cleared for the apartment complex on North Coit (5-6 stories?) Looking north: Looking west: Looking east: 12 story McLeod tower is in the background Looking south: A lot has been cleared across from the McMillan Federal Building on Evans St. Unsure what's going there. Finally, here's the progress on the Little Theatre on Dargan St. Looking southwest: A low res pan looking west: Looking northwest: There's still no progress on the FMU performing arts center @ Palmetto and Dargan. I don't know what the holdup is.

Good find. Here's the article. A truly pathetic waste of potential. As for the portrayal of Florence...no, not good PR for the city. ESPN

I'm glad this road finally got built. It makes getting to I-95 and FMU much quicker. I haven't been on it yet but I will this week. The road is basically running through swampland (it roughly follows the yellow line below), which is why it has taken so long to be built. It will certainly help the area around Freedom Florence to grow. Until now, the road leading to the FF complex has been a dead end to nowhere.

Great pics, especially coming from a cell phone. Sorry I couldn't make it on Saturday. To quote Lloyd Bentsen..... "I know Berkeley, I've spent time in Berkeley, I like Berkeley, and Florence, you're no Berkeley". Seriously, I work in downtown Florence, and it is in fact dismal. It is the neglect of the buildings, as well as the absence of ANYTHING going on after 6PM (anything legal). It is slowly improving along Dargan Street from Palmetto St heading south. But the rest of DT is a disgrace. The street fair atmosphere may have made it resemble Berkeley in the pics, but if only Florence's DT looked like Berkeley's in real life. You may be right about the skyline itself resembling Berkeley's, but street level is a totally different story. Here are some pics of Berkeley, by the way. Gives Florence something to shoot for

Here's an old picture of downtown Columbia from 1960. ENLARGED PHOTO

I haven't heard what they're going to do with it. I think Roses is staying, but I'm not sure about the surrounding shops. I can't for the life of me figure out how Roses makes enough profit to afford a location at one of the the busiest intersections in town. They must own their building and the land it sits on. My fondest memory of Roses is when you used to have to pay a dime to use their filthy toilets. That was in the late 70's and I don't think they've renovated the inside of the store since then.

It looks like the Southpark Shopping Center on the corner of Irby and Second Loop is being demolished (or at least the end stores on each side). It has been there at least 35 years. I don't know how the Roses has contined to stay in business with the Super Wal-Mart a half mile away. It certainly isn't cheaper prices or better selection. Enlarged Photo P.A.'s Restaurant and the old Southpark post office used to operate in these storefronts. Enlarged Photo

Sure there is racism in Florence, but I don't know if that is the reason for the state of disrepair of the downtown area. I think the building owners have just neglected their properties, and the city has done a poor job getting them to them fix up. I'll admit that if I owned one of the properties, given the state of the area, I would be hesitant to put a lot of money into the structure. The risk-reward is too skewed too much toward the former. On the issue of race, while most blacks in town probably would like DT to be cleaned up, I think that many black store owners (and some customers) would fear that renovating the area would bring higher rents, and the resulting gentrification would be met with resistance. The "they're trying to kick us out" cries would be heard, as they always are when revitalization efforts are discussed and implemented. Unfortunately, some displacement will be necessary, unless we want DT to continue to look like this: Tax breaks could be offered to existing store owners to help offset higher rents (assuming the area is ever renovated, especially around the Dargan and Evans area). But there needs to be diverse shops and restaurants that are going to draw the entire community. A Starbucks; an independent record store (i.e. Manifest); a fine dining restaurant as examples. The current spate of payday loans, low-end reatailers (Maxway) and boarded up shops will continue the status quo. There is no reason why DT can't become a place where all races and income levels can come to shop, eat and interact at cultural events. This could only be good for race relations in the long run. The current segregated, economically depressed state of the DT only exacerbates racial divisions in the community.

Digital, I'm unsure about the UP rules about linking to scanned copies of newspaper articles, so I'll try to e-mail you the link if you want to check it out.

Some may have already heard that the local institution, the Skyview Drive-In restaurant burned down recently. Here's the article from the morning news. I used to eat there all the time as a teenager (and adult). Skyview Burns Down

Urban Planet was recently mentioned in the local Florence paper, and Digital Sandlapper was mentioned by name in the Thom Anderson paragraph. It talked about Florence's poor history of preservation efforts. I'd post the actual item here, but I don't think that is allowed at UP.

Some quick pics of the Little Theatre construction on Dargan St.

The Florence/MB market will be getting an NBC affiliate soon. It will likely take the place of WIS and WECT. Read more about it in this thread... WMBF

That last javascript link is unworkable. Go to the Florence city website and scroll down to the article on the design guidelines. City of Florence

I don't have any photos of the FLT plans; I should have saved them. Here are some design guidlines for the downtown area. They look great on paper; I hope Florence can pull it off. Design Guidelines

I take that back....their are a few things going on. This is a few months old, but it is a positive article regarding what's going on in the downtown area. http://www.scbiznews.com/content/view/19752/1/. Should the link expire, I'm posting the text below. Do not paste articles. Please familiarize yourelf with the rules of UrbanPlanet.