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The JM Smith park on the corner of Church and St. John isn't "quiet" either. Does that cause it not to be a great addition to the overall landscape? Not in my opinion, It was a parking lot that now has some paths, benches, trees and lights. Would have rather seen the corner developed, but it is still an improvement.

As far as the park we are talking about... I was under the impression that it basically helps make the transition from Hampton Heights into the hub-bub area. Hopefully the artists currently there will be able to set up "mini shows" in the area so people will have a small park to walk around and look at art. Personally, I don't care if anyone walks in there or not. It looks tremendously better than what was there, could help in other development or redevelopment and it didn't cost me a dime.

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Another one bites the dust! Two more buildings have been demolished. Well, 1 one building and one facade. Where? Ezell Street. By whom? QS-1. Why? Pave paradise, put up a parking lot...sha la la There goes the hope for a charming little street. Bye bye historical buildings. Hello asphalt and marker lines.

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I'm also wondering where on Ezell? ARe you talking about the alley way that is behind the Salvation Army? If so, then I thought that that area was bought by Johnson with the idea of tearing just about everything down there. it was an old car dealership. (I think) I hope you are not talking across from the new renovations that they made on the QS1 block.

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The Salvation Army Needs to come down too. QS 1 has the building being demolished now and George Dean has the Salvation Army site. It is my understanding that QS 1 had eventually wanted to do a sister building on the corner of Daniel Morgan and St. John, George Dean would eventually build new on the Salvation Army site, and a new parking deck would be built between the new QS 1 building and the new building on the Salvation Army site. Rumors were that QS 1 had regretted not adding a couple more floors on their building as they were out of space about the time they finished and had no room for expansion. They could build soon if this is the case. George Dean has more sites downtown to develop that might be higher priority. I did notice that the BOA site on E. Main Street had geotechnical work going on. They were doing soil boarings a few weeks back and this is usually the first thing to happen in the development process. I haven't heard of any tenants for the new 300 block building. I would assume he would want to fill this first unless he had a prelease for a new building somewhere else.

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Burwell's Chevrolet was in the building on the opposite corner across from the Herald-Journal office.

http://digital.infodepot.org/cdm4/results....OBOX1=Chevrolet

The Salvation Army was DoDge City Dealership in the late70's and early 80's . Prior to that I think it was a Ford dealership.

The buildings that were razed were two and 3 doors down from Warrior Duck BLDG. You could just ride bye, if that doesn't clear it up. lol

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Its been about 4 years, I think, since we first heard of the new wayfinding signs. It seems that they are FINALLY ready to go. According to this article, they day some designed before but were not pleased with the result. I hope that it means these will be high quality signs.

Vehicular, downtown pedestrian and bicycle and trail signs are planned in the city

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Another one bites the dust! Two more buildings have been demolished. Well, 1 one building and one facade. Where? Ezell Street. By whom? QS-1. Why? Pave paradise, put up a parking lot...sha la la There goes the hope for a charming little street. Bye bye historical buildings. Hello asphalt and marker lines.

I was in town and I was able to check it out. Its definitely a loss for Spartanburg. Check out this photo:

SPA_ezellst01.jpg

I forget when I took it. Probably about 3 or 4 years ago. Its a good thing I did since this seems to be the destiny for the entire street. Knock it all down. I know its not an attractive street, its not a clean, shiny, new street like the other half of Ezell (which looks nice in its own right). But it looks like we lost TWO buildings here. I'm guessing nobody here knows for what reason. My guess is a parking lot. But there is nobody out there who can honestly say that this is progress. I refuse to believe that these buildings could not have been saved, and I refuse to believe that these buildings- or at least their front facades- could not have been preserved.

There is one building still left (the tallest in the former group of three) and it looks like they are going to save it. They have a steel support structure holding up the side.

Check off two more buildings lost in the name of progress.

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Oh and one last thing.

Someone is remodeling one of the units in the Palmetto Building- two spots down from Groucho's. Any idea whats going on there?

Also, the former Spartanburg County Museum spot (the former Aug. W. Smith Building) has been vacated and they removed part of the front facade. It has opened up a little more sidewalk space... enough for about 4 or 5 small cafe tables. The original tiling for the "Aug. W. Smith" store is still there. I didn't get any pictures, but the place has a lot of potential. It would be a good restaurant location according to the sign out front.

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Oh and one last thing.

Someone is remodeling one of the units in the Palmetto Building- two spots down from Groucho's. Any idea whats going on there?

Also, the former Spartanburg County Museum spot (the former Aug. W. Smith Building) has been vacated and they removed part of the front facade. It has opened up a little more sidewalk space... enough for about 4 or 5 small cafe tables. The original tiling for the "Aug. W. Smith" store is still there. I didn't get any pictures, but the place has a lot of potential. It would be a good restaurant location according to the sign out front.

Are you talking about where Bishop Furniture is or was because that was in the old Aug W Smith building as well as the Piedmont Blood Bank.

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No, not Bishop Furniture. Aug W Smith did move at least once. Its right next to the SPACE/Upstate Forever offices on Main St. If you look at the exposed tiling you can see "Aug. W. Smith" spelled in a greenish/black tile. I'm assuming Aug W Smith used to be located there at some point in Spartanburg's history. It used to house the County Museum up until a few months ago. It has a fairly new looking and unattractive stucco thing going on. I'm hoping they can expose whatever used to be underneath it.

Bishop Furniture is another one haven't discussed much yet. I'm thinking that would be a good place for Mast General.

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I think Mast would be better suited for the Kimbrell Furniture Bldg down on Morgan Square as it is smaller. Bishop Furniture in the old last Aug W Smith building is huge. Even with the blood bank taking up the old men's department it is still a big building. Althou if Mast were to want to go here, it would "stretch" downtown. Right now, downtown starts at Daniel Morgan and it ends at Church. Its really pretty pathetic.

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I was in town and I was able to check it out. Its definitely a loss for Spartanburg. Check out this photo:

SPA_ezellst01.jpg

I forget when I took it. Probably about 3 or 4 years ago. Its a good thing I did since this seems to be the destiny for the entire street. Knock it all down. I know its not an attractive street, its not a clean, shiny, new street like the other half of Ezell (which looks nice in its own right). But it looks like we lost TWO buildings here. I'm guessing nobody here knows for what reason. My guess is a parking lot. But there is nobody out there who can honestly say that this is progress. I refuse to believe that these buildings could not have been saved, and I refuse to believe that these buildings- or at least their front facades- could not have been preserved.

There is one building still left (the tallest in the former group of three) and it looks like they are going to save it. They have a steel support structure holding up the side.

Check off two more buildings lost in the name of progress.

THose buildings did go down to be a parking lot. I know the owner of the remaining building on Ezell. There are lots of things to consider in order to restore/renovate it. Even if it is saved, the biggest challenge is there is no parking. THe business district ends on the other side of Ezell.... the Sonny's side. The Master Plan... just more money blown at taxpayers expense.

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There are lots of things to consider, that is true. While I am an advocate of historic preservation I will concede that there are times when it is necessary to tear down old buildings. But I think it needs to be proven to some sort of historical review committee as to why it should be torn down and why that is the only logical solution. In this case, why not share that large parking lots that are near by (Warrior Duck, Salvation Army, the City Lot across from QS1, the Carriage House Wine lot)? Why not have on street parking? Why not save the front walls & facades and take down the rest? I'll point out that the second building from the left in that picture was already that way. The developer here could have just built a new building attached to that on the front.

I'm beginning to think that either the City's Planning & Economic Development Department, developers, business owners, or some combination of these players are not thinking outside the box for solutions to simple problems. I don't recall if the Master Plan addresses these things or not, but we know that its not going to be adopted until George gets his college started and that bank gets going. All I know for sure is that if we keep loosing these old buildings then what little charm our city has left is going to be destroyed. This loss on a random, seldom-traveled street probably seems trivial for most Spartans out there. I'm sure many people think "great they are finally cleaning up that crappy street" or something to that effect. Its painful to me how little vision and imagination some people have.

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I have to admit, having some memories of how downtown looked in the 70's when my grandmother took me to go shopping & having revisited a month ago - I am very dissapointed in how it looks now. On the plus side - there are at least some places to go to on Main Street. But driving on Main Street (I hate how they made the street so curvy) it gave me the impression that I was driving through a new suburban 'lifestyle center' because though there were buildings along the street, there was a lot of parking surrounding them.

Sorry - please don't flame me - but it was really disheartening to see all those parking lots with random unoccupied buildings scattered about.

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There are lots of things to consider, that is true. While I am an advocate of historic preservation I will concede that there are times when it is necessary to tear down old buildings. But I think it needs to be proven to some sort of historical review committee as to why it should be torn down and why that is the only logical solution. In this case, why not share that large parking lots that are near by (Warrior Duck, Salvation Army, the City Lot across from QS1, the Carriage House Wine lot)? Why not have on street parking? Why not save the front walls & facades and take down the rest? I'll point out that the second building from the left in that picture was already that way. The developer here could have just built a new building attached to that on the front.

I'm beginning to think that either the City's Planning & Economic Development Department, developers, business owners, or some combination of these players are not thinking outside the box for solutions to simple problems. I don't recall if the Master Plan addresses these things or not, but we know that its not going to be adopted until George gets his college started and that bank gets going. All I know for sure is that if we keep loosing these old buildings then what little charm our city has left is going to be destroyed. This loss on a random, seldom-traveled street probably seems trivial for most Spartans out there. I'm sure many people think "great they are finally cleaning up that crappy street" or something to that effect. Its painful to me how little vision and imagination some people have.

I always thought those buildings had great potenial and could have extended the intimate feeling of Ezell street on down. Guess that won't happen now.

While I live in Spartanburg I work in G'ville, so I don't know how downtown is during the Business day, but are all the Parking Garages full M-F 9-5? There is nowhere in downtown that is that far a walk from any of the parking garages.

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