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New Spartanburg High School Proposal


Sparkleman

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As most of you know I was against this from the start, but Booker was not going to be denied, so I am going to have to live with it. Hopefully out of all this some roads can be expanded that have needed to be expanded for some time. Zion Hill Rd is going to be key in this project and hopefully it can be moved to 4 lanes although it going to be tricky. Plainview needs to be expanded but there is so little room to work with, I do not know how that gets done short of buying houses and then leveling them.

I just don't get the feeling transportation warranted much thought in this decision over placing this in a convenient spot for the east side. Conversely Dorman placed their HS is a spot with plenty of land at an intersection of 2 major highways. It seems to me D7 could have leveled Chapman & Whitlock (they already own the land) and used the land there and expanded Bryant Rd to 4 lanes. Then you have 4 lane roads all the way around the HS (Bryant, 221, Business 85).

Obviously this is a mute point, but I hope these genius' get it figured out for the sake of everyone that uses east main in the morning going forward.

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I agree that the transportation impacts don't feel like they've been thought through very well. That being said, I don't think that 4-lane-ing everything is the solution either. Something to keep in mind is that the east side of the county just isn't growing like the west side, so the need to build high-volume roads just doesn't exist, even when planning for the distant future. 

A more cost effective solution is to install a 3-lane road with sidewalks and bike lanes. The center lane becomes a turn lane, and turn lanes improve a road's carrying capacity significantly while making it safer for everyone by getting turning traffic out of the way. Doing this would also reduce ROW purchasing costs and impacts to property (though you'd definitely need to buy a few houses to make that work). Similiarly, the 3-lane concept is part of why Fernwood Dr was reduced from 4 to 3 lanes a few years ago, and IMO why Fernwood-Glendale Rd needs to see the same thing happen.

Plainview at three lanes probably makes sense, but given that it's the only way to get across the railroad for a few miles in each direction you could convince me that 5 lanes would make sense there.

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  • 7 months later...

District 7 has unveiled the final design for the new Spartanburg High School.  The design is more Moderne/Contemporary now.  It looks pretty good, but I liked how the previous Collegiate Gothic design hearkened back to the original SHS/Evans Building.  Oh well, still solid.  Groundbreaking will be Wednesday, December 14.

Final SHS 1.jpg

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20 hours ago, Spartan said:

Meh. The old design was awesome. This one is boring, though possibly less expensive. Either way, this building is going to be so far off of the street that the design really isn't that important since it won't be contributing to the surrounding community.

Call me a cynic, but I doubt it's less expensive.  We're talking about D7 here.  They are building a $36 million elementary school which is about the same size as the one D2 just built for $23 million.

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Ha, good point.

All the more reason that Spartanburg County needs to consolidate school districts. If 2 3 and 7 were in the same district then it wouldn't be a big deal to shift some students over to Broome and Boiling Springs. I'm willing to bet Broome has capacity without the need for the other two to build new facilities.

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  • 1 year later...

Thought I'd dig up this thread since construction on the new Spartan High has now progressed significantly.  Here are some photos I took several days ago from various angles.

From Home Depot looking West:

IMG_9423.thumb.JPG.b5c5f7b8060a13afebb4936af27511cc.JPG

From Lidl looking East:

IMG_9431.thumb.JPG.38027086acaec4ab4f5c358bd2e95fff.JPG

From across East Main looking head-on at the front of the school:

IMG_9435.thumb.JPG.5aace88850e94778c831da6cdcecb4fd.JPG

And here's a rendering as a refresher on what it will look like when finished:

5aa70c2a8394f_FinalSHS2b.jpg.3bc7cbf1aaa2b0f2680921cbd17098d7.jpg

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  • 4 months later...

Gotta keep up with Dorman somehow!!

This is a great example of why Spartanburg needs a consolidated school district. More purchasing power/economies of scale, the ability to hire more competent managers with more competitive pay, and and more voters to keep the school board in check.

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