New County Courthouse

[westsider28]

Here's a great aerial view of construction progress at the courthouse from Bennett Paving's Facebook page:

[westsider28]

According to this evening's County Council meeting, the parking deck will open to the public on Tuesday, July 6.

A groundbreaking ceremony for the new courthouse will be held Tuesday, July 13 at 10 AM.

The Emergency Operations Center (on Fairforest Road) should begin construction late-August or September.

Edited June 28, 2021 by westsider28
link

[westsider28]

Parking deck opened Tuesday, and the parking lot at St John and DMA is now closed for upcoming courthouse construction.  A few random observations about the parking deck: it has 2 EV chargers, the one elevator that runs by the exterior windows unfortunately doesn't have a window in the car, and the walls on the top floor are almost 6ft tall (probably a safety thing) which makes photo-taking difficult.  I took some skyline photos (posted in Photo-of-the-Day thread) mostly from the next floor down.  Demolished annex is totally cleared.

[westsider28]

HJ article about the groundbreaking ceremony today and economic impact.  Construction on the new building should take 26 months, then 9 months for demolition of the old building and constructing the new plaza.  As a reminder, it will be six-stories, 124 feet tall, 340k sq ft (triple current building size).  During construction, there will be from 125 to 250 workers on site, and lane closures on North Daniel Morgan Avenue will begin in September.

I wonder if it will be concrete- or steel-frame construction, and whether a tower crane will be used.  Looking forward to watching the progress.

[westsider28]

The construction webcam has been relocated (to 142 Social it appears) so that courthouse construction is now visible.  I suspect it will be a couple months of site / drainage / utility work before we see the building foundation start.

[westsider28]

Update from Monday's County Council meeting: construction is ahead of schedule.  Grading for the foundation pad (visible below) should be done in September, then drilling and pouring underground foundation anchors/piles/footers (~15-20 feet deep, I think) through November.  Then they'll pour the slab(s), I believe.  Building should start going vertical in the new year.  Webcam screenshot from today:

[westsider28]

Another update from tonight's County Council meeting: drilling and pouring underground foundation anchors/piles/footers has begun (see webcam screenshot from a few days ago below).  They'll work in three phases (corresponding to the 3 different basement elevations) north to south, drilling and filling several hundred holes; with slab pour to follow as they move to the next phase.  There will be lane closures on DMA starting Oct. 9-10.  Sounds like the building will be steel-frame (again, going vertical just after the new year).

Emergency operations center (Fairforest Road) is in permitting.

City police HQ (across N Forest from Miracle Hill) is in design still.

[westsider28]

Quick update from Monday's County Council meeting: drilling has finished ahead of schedule; with 875 holes drilled and filled, each one 50-75 feet deep. Foundation crews are now working. Retaining wall should start going up in segments by November. New traffic pattern on DMA was delayed due to rain, but should happen this weekend. A materials mock-up should be on-site in mid-Nov, which will give a preview of how the building will look.

EOC (Fairforest Rd) should start in 30-45 days.

City police HQ design is nearly done.

[westsider28]

Basement walls going up. The footprint of the new courthouse beginning to take shape.

[westsider28]

No significant updates at the County Council meeting other than basement wall progress will continue.  Also, the EOC is about to start construction on Fairforest Rd.  Police HQ still in design.  Some pics from the weekend:

[westsider28]

The large footprint of the new courthouse is becoming more evident as the basement wall construction continues:

 

Edited November 28, 2021 by westsider28

[westsider28]

We may be nearing the finish line for the retaining wall portion of the basement level.  I think the rest may be steel-framed (since it won't need to hold back dirt).  The scale is impressive.

[westsider28]

Update from tonight's County Council meeting: Retaining wall is done.  A large crane (mobile, not tower) should arrive in January for steel erection.  Topping-out for the steel framework should occur in April or May 2022.  That's surprisingly early for a facility that isn't supposed to open until late-2023, but I guess there's A LOT of work to be done after the basic framework is complete.  Also, the material mock-up should be starting in January and will progress along with (but slightly ahead of) construction.  I think it will be along Magnolia somewhere.  Here's an aerial screenshot from the construction progress video:

Emergency Operations Center has begun.  It's behind the DMV on Fairforest Road by the rear entrance of SCC.

City Police HQ is moving from design development to construction documents.

Edited December 14, 2021 by westsider28

[vicupstate]

Where is the City police HQ going? 

[Spartanburg Dude]

13 hours ago, westsider28 said:

Update from tonight's County Council meeting: Retaining wall is done.  A large crane (mobile, not tower) should arrive in January for steel erection.  Topping-out for the steel framework should occur in April or May 2022.  That's surprisingly early for a facility that isn't supposed to open until late-2023, but I guess there's A LOT of work to be done after the basic framework is complete.  Also, the material mock-up should be starting in January and will progress along with (but slightly ahead of) construction.  I think it will be along Magnolia somewhere.  Here's an aerial screenshot from the construction progress video:

Emergency Operations Center has begun.  It's behind the DMV on Fairforest Road by the rear entrance of SCC.

City Police HQ is moving from design development to construction documents.

Is the EOC going to replace the 911 Tower on Pine and Main? Or are those two things not related? 

[westsider28]

3 hours ago, Spartanburg Dude said:

Is the EOC going to replace the 911 Tower on Pine and Main? Or are those two things not related? 

According to the webpage about the new EOC:

"The County’s EOC was located in the existing Judicial Center however it has been temporarily relocated during construction of the courthouse and new EOC.  The construction of a new 12,000 sq. ft. EOC facility will include onsite parking and cost an estimated $5.6 million.

The new facility will house Emergency Management Services, Emergency Operations Center, Hazardous Materials operations and the county’s alternate 9-1-1 call center.  One of the goals of this project is to provide better geographical separation between the primary and alternate 9-1-1 call centers to lessen the likelihood that a natural or man-made catastrophe could disable both centers.  Another goal is to have the EOC facility located near an interstate to facilitate access by emergency personnel."

So it's different/redundant and won't have any impact on that facility.

8 hours ago, vicupstate said:

Where is the City police HQ going? 

NW corner of St John and Forest, across from Miracle Hill.

[Spartanburg Dude]

2 hours ago, westsider28 said:

"The County’s EOC was located in the existing Judicial Center however it has been temporarily relocated during construction of the courthouse and new EOC.  The construction of a new 12,000 sq. ft. EOC facility will include onsite parking and cost an estimated $5.6 million.

The new facility will house Emergency Management Services, Emergency Operations Center, Hazardous Materials operations and the county’s alternate 9-1-1 call center.  One of the goals of this project is to provide better geographical separation between the primary and alternate 9-1-1 call centers to lessen the likelihood that a natural or man-made catastrophe could disable both centers.  Another goal is to have the EOC facility located near an interstate to facilitate access by emergency personnel."

So it's different/redundant and won't have any impact on that facility.

Thanks for that. I get it. But would love to see that tower taken down. Such an eye sore. But it is what it is! 

[Spartan]

I'd rather them take down the AT&T tower behind it than the building.

[Spartanburg Dude]

11 hours ago, Spartan said:

I'd rather them take down the AT&T tower behind it than the building.

That's what I meant, that ugly red thing. I thought it was part of the 911 system. 

[Spartan]

On 12/16/2021 at 10:00 AM, Spartanburg Dude said:

That's what I meant, that ugly red thing. I thought it was part of the 911 system. 

 

Yes, 911 is based out of that building too. I have a friend that use to work there so I think its both. I could be totally wrong here, but my understanding is that AT&T's (ie: Bell Systems/Southern Bell) historic switching center for Spartanburg County is also at that location, so while they don't use a physical switch board anymore, there is still a lot of important communications infrastructure in that one place. It makes sense that 911 would put its operations center there from that historical perspective.  If this is incorrect I'd love to know... but given where that building is in town, it seems like it would have been built in/around 1910-1920 or so which is about the right time for a telephone system to be built to serve the fancy new homes on in Converse Heights. 

[westsider28]

2 hours ago, Spartan said:

Yes, 911 is based out of that building too. I have a friend that use to work there so I think its both. I could be totally wrong here, but my understanding is that AT&T's (ie: Bell Systems/Southern Bell) historic switching center for Spartanburg County is also at that location, so while they don't use a physical switch board anymore, there is still a lot of important communications infrastructure in that one place. It makes sense that 911 would put its operations center there from that historical perspective.  If this is incorrect I'd love to know... but given where that building is in town, it seems like it would have been built in/around 1910-1920 or so which is about the right time for a telephone system to be built to serve the fancy new homes on in Converse Heights. 

That area was still large homes on the 1923 Sanborn map.  Property records say it was built in 1946, but those can be inaccurate with old building construction dates. 

Southern Bell had a 3-story office building with switchboards at 217 East Main (built in 1914, current location of Richardson Park).  It's possible they were there until 1946.  (Before 1914, they were above the Elite restaurant at 117 East Main, current location of FR8yard).

Southern Bell (or current iteration) owns all the land at the current 461 East Main site (including the communications tower), but not the 4-story building, which the County bought from them in 1999. 

That's what I could find with a quick search.

[Spartan]

Good stuff. 1946 doesn't seem crazy either.

[westsider28]

County Council toured the courthouse construction site today.  According to the P&C, construction is ahead of schedule.  Steel erection should begin on January 24, with topping-out in late-April or early-May.  The new courthouse should open in October 2023.

[Spartan]

I"m genuinely curious why the P&C has a) coverage of Spartanburg and 2)better coverage than the HJ??

[westsider28]

38 minutes ago, Spartan said:

I"m genuinely curious why the P&C has a) coverage of Spartanburg and 2)better coverage than the HJ??

They've expanded to basically the whole state.  I'm glad they have.  I'm sure they saw an opening to provide decent journalism with the severe deterioration of the newspapers that have been bought up by national corporations (i.e. H-J and G-News).