Renaissance Park Projects & Developments

[roads-scholar]

19 hours ago, Spartan said:

Great pics! DMA needs a road diet!

If not a road diet maybe some serious streetscaping.   

[westsider28]

19 hours ago, Spartan said:

Great pics! DMA needs a road diet!

47 minutes ago, roads-scholar said:

If not a road diet maybe some serious streetscaping.   

There's some early planning happening to narrow the roadway and add a protected bikeway along DMA.  It would help connect the Rail Trail extension to Beaumont (and perhaps the Northside eventually).  I think the roadway is wide enough that they don't need to eliminate any vehicle lanes to accommodate the bikeway, just narrow them all.

(Wishful thinking, but I would actually prefer [thru] traffic be funneled onto DMA and go around downtown to lessen traffic on St John.)

[NotNotSanti]

That's the idea for some of the streets (not sure about this one). Here's an example from the City Comprehensive Plan. 

 

Edited May 5, 2022 by Santi

[Spartan]

5' buffered bike lanes are ok. A 10 ft buffered cycle track like westsider is talking about would be much better though. You don't need 4 lanes for traffic on that street and likely never will. Take the extra space and give it to pedestrians an cyclists!

[westsider28]

On 3/29/2022 at 11:24 AM, westsider28 said:

More details in this H-J article.

5-stories; 83,000 SF (20k SF per floor 1-4) with 10k SF retail (3-5 spots) and 10k SF lobby/office, and 3k SF rooftop restaurant + outdoor seating; $30-40M investment; 350 to 400 workers in the building daily; start end of 2022 / early-2023.

Not directly related, but the article also mentions "MP Cloud Technologies, currently at the Denny's building, has asked for another floor to be ready, as they will be at 150 employees by the end of 2022". Seems like a great candidate to anchor a new or renovated office building (this one, 234 N Church, Advance America, etc).

Edit: It appears that this was "Project Eagles Nest", so one "secret" project is now known.  Also, higher-res rendering here:

There was a slightly updated rendering of this building in the excellent development round-up article in UBJ that @gman430 posted in another thread.  Looks a bit more cohesive, IMO.  I hope this comes before the DRB soon so we can see more details. (like what's with that weird switch-back ramp thing?)

[Spartan]

The switchbacks are for ADA access requirements. I'm assuming based on the slope of the lot that we're looking at the Liberty St side at Silver Hill St. Basically it looks like they're making the ground floor level with the parking structure behind it instead of the street it fronts, which makes  the ground floor higher on the downslope side. OR they are making the primary entrance on the uphill side of the site. It's hard to tell without a site plan. Ideally I'd like to see the building adapt to the slope a bit better but this is what you get with slab on grade construction. Not terrible, but not great either.

[westsider28]

On 5/13/2022 at 8:43 PM, Spartan said:

The switchbacks are for ADA access requirements. I'm assuming based on the slope of the lot that we're looking at the Liberty St side at Silver Hill St. Basically it looks like they're making the ground floor level with the parking structure behind it instead of the street it fronts, which makes  the ground floor higher on the downslope side. OR they are making the primary entrance on the uphill side of the site. It's hard to tell without a site plan. Ideally I'd like to see the building adapt to the slope a bit better but this is what you get with slab on grade construction. Not terrible, but not great either.

Well, yes. I don't think the DRB will accept that condition, given it's on the street front.  If anything, the rear should be sunken, with the ramp there.  There's also the open question of whether or not Silverhill Street will ever be relocated to properly intersect itself/Liberty. 

I saw survey flags all around the site over the weekend.  Seems to be moving along in the background.  Hopefully we'll see the project before the DRB soon.

[NotNotSanti]

Wow. Landscape went up on Daniel Morgan side of things. What a transformation! I just had to take some pics. 

[westsider28]

On 5/6/2022 at 12:57 PM, westsider28 said:

There was a slightly updated rendering of this building in the excellent development round-up article in UBJ that @gman430 posted in another thread.  Looks a bit more cohesive, IMO.  I hope this comes before the DRB soon so we can see more details. (like what's with that weird switch-back ramp thing?)

On 5/16/2022 at 9:09 PM, westsider28 said:

Well, yes. I don't think the DRB will accept that condition, given it's on the street front.  If anything, the rear should be sunken, with the ramp there.  There's also the open question of whether or not Silverhill Street will ever be relocated to properly intersect itself/Liberty. 

I saw survey flags all around the site over the weekend.  Seems to be moving along in the background.  Hopefully we'll see the project before the DRB soon.

On Monday, County Council will have 3rd and final reading of a development agreement for this project.  However, they also introduced an amendment that clarifies the exact piece of property involved.  The City recently split this office parcel from a larger parcel that included half of the parking deck (which must have been what the survey flags on-site were for).  I presume this amendment will also require 3 readings (final reading would likely be August).  Hopefully that doesn't slow down the development process.

Below is the original city parcel that's now 3 parcels (Fairfield Hotel, parking deck, and office).  Then the exact office parcel.

   

[westsider28]

Found some nice aerial photos of The Charles from their FB page and Apartment Finder:

[westsider28]

Found a nice aerial of Silver Hill (and Barnet Park) on their FB page.

They also have a link to a cool 360-view of downtown and the Barnet Park area.

[westsider28]

The famous local goat herd is going to work on the kudzu valley behind Silverhill.

The Charles:

Blue Moon Bodega getting closer to opening:

[westsider28]

The Marriott owners have decided to exercise their purchase option on the land the hotel sits on 3 years early (for $1.85M) so they can make $4M in renovations/improvements to the hotel by the end of 2024.  Not sure why they needed to purchase the land to make building improvements (financing reasons maybe?) but I guess it doesn't matter too much since they were going to buy it soon anyway.  Hopefully they modernize the interior.  I've read reviews that say it feels very outdated inside.

I wonder what the City plans to do with the cash from this sale and the sale of land for the office building nearby?  That's over $3.3M from these land sales.  I continue to maintain that the City should have a strategic land-acquisition fund to purchase tracts of land that go up for sale that could have value to the City for affordable housing, infrastructure (like road or trail connections), parks, etc.

The Herald-Journal article about the land sale recaps some existing and planned development nearby, including mentioning that The Charles is nearly 90% leased already.  A clear sign that we continue to need more urban apartments.

[vicupstate]

1 hour ago, westsider28 said:

The Marriott owners have decided to exercise their purchase option on the land the hotel sits on 3 years early (for $1.85M) so they can make $4M in renovations/improvements to the hotel by the end of 2024.  Not sure why they needed to purchase the land to make building improvements (financing reasons maybe?) but I guess it doesn't matter too much since they were going to buy it soon anyway.  Hopefully they modernize the interior.  I've read reviews that say it feels very outdated inside.

I wonder what the City plans to do with the cash from this sale and the sale of land for the office building nearby?  That's over $3.3M from these land sales.  I continue to maintain that the City should have a strategic land-acquisition fund to purchase tracts of land that go up for sale that could have value to the City for affordable housing, infrastructure (like road or trail connections), parks, etc.

The Herald-Journal article about the land sale recaps some existing and planned development nearby, including mentioning that The Charles is nearly 90% leased already.  A clear sign that we continue to need more urban apartments.

Very good point. In retrospect Greenville should have bought more land for affordable housing before land got so 'unaffordable'.  

[westsider28]

Speaking of that planned office building (at 186 N Liberty), it's scheduled to go before the DRB for Preliminary Approval at their November 1 meeting.  Glad to see this one finally progressing.  Here's the last rendering we saw of it from several months ago:

[westsider28]

The Liberty Street office building (186 N Liberty) will be requesting preliminary approval at Tuesday's (11/1) DRB meeting.  The City consultant recommends denial, mainly because of the excessive retaining walls.  I can't believe the developers are still trying to push through this design after they have surely gotten this feedback from the DRB and staff over the past few months since the initial rendering.  Essentially, they're designing the building's elevation based on the parking deck rather than the street front.

The City consultant suggests a compromise of having the center of the building on-grade with the street (making the south end slightly sunken but reducing the wall on the north end) or have the ground floor stairstep down the grade.

It's so frustrating to me that developers here struggle so much with basic urban design principals. I never see that in other cities; they only argue about height and architecture/materials. Anyway, I hope the DRB sends this project back to the drawing board.

[hub-city]

So in looking at headlines it looks like this was given a green light to proceed.  Anyone have any other details?  I don’t subscribe to the HJ…..

[westsider28]

1 hour ago, hub-city said:

So in looking at headlines it looks like this was given a green light to proceed.  Anyone have any other details?  I don’t subscribe to the HJ…..

It received preliminary approval with the condition that they address sidewalk width and street trees (which were substandard in this submission).  They'll still need to come back for final approval.

[NotNotSanti]

18 hours ago, westsider28 said:

It received preliminary approval with the condition that they address sidewalk width and street trees (which were substandard in this submission).  They'll still need to come back for final approval.

Thank you! I've been sick and wasn't able to attend the meeting in person. It'd be so cool if they could be broadcasted as well! Wonder if regular citizens can livestream the meetings...

[gman430]

McMillan Pazdan Smith has leased 13,000 square feet of office space in the proposed Liberty Street office building to get built next year.

Edited December 8, 2022 by gman430

[westsider28]

4 hours ago, gman430 said:

McMillan Pazdan Smith has leased 13,000 square feet of office space in the proposed Liberty Street office building to get built next year.

Here's the UBJ article.  They'll be on the 4th floor.  The office project appears to be called "LIBERTY".  Construction is expected to begin in Q2-2023.

I hope that once MPS vacates their existing building on Main Street, it gets redeveloped with more active ground-floor uses.  It's been a huge dead zone for years.

The article looks like it may have a new rendering, but it's really low-res:

Edited December 8, 2022 by westsider28

[westsider28]

Liberty office building is now being actively marketed for-lease by NAI Earle Furman.  The listing says Q1 2025 completion.  Below is a higher-resolution version of the newest rendering:

[roads-scholar]

2 hours ago, westsider28 said:

Liberty office building is now being actively marketed for-lease by NAI Earle Furman.  The listing says Q1 2025 completion.  Below is a higher-resolution version of the newest rendering:

Presumably M-P-S will be the primary tenant but I wonder how much additional square feet has to be committed, if any, before construction will begin? 

Edited January 26, 2023 by roads-scholar

[gman430]

Downtown Spartanburg needs more class A office space badly. It has one of the lowest vacancy rates in the entire southeast at around 2.5% according to Colliers.

Edited January 26, 2023 by gman430

[roads-scholar]

On 1/26/2023 at 3:55 PM, roads-scholar said:

Presumably M-P-S will be the primary tenant but I wonder how much additional square feet has to be committed, if any, before construction will begin? 

Sign is posted    

Edited January 31, 2023 by roads-scholar