Augusta Road

[btoy]

Chick Fil a purchased a site on augusta rd.  it includes the Saluda River Pet Foods building and buildings to the left of it.

Edited November 22, 2015 by btoy

[ausrutherford]

2 hours ago, btoy said:

Chick Fil a purchased a site on augusta rd.  it includes the Saluda River Pet Foods building and buildings to the left of it.

Glad to see it finally going forward. They have been trying to figure out the site for a long time. 

[mallguy]

Is Saluda River staying in a redeveloped site, or is it moving somewhere else?

[gman430]

Vaughn Russell will be moving to a new building across Augusta Street from 400 Augusta. They're currently located where Chick Fil A will go. 

Edited December 21, 2015 by gman430

[gman430]

Very cool: http://upstatebusinessjournal.com/news/first-look-the-05/

[sc smitty]

Plans for the Augusta St Chick-fil-A are going before the city, first to the Board of Zoning Appeals to get a special exemption for their drive thru.  Hard to comment without seeing a plan posted yet, but I would be hesitant to make exceptions for more suburban sprawl type development coming to Augusta St. I hope this isn't the typical stand alone fast food restaurant.  We've already got the big box grocery store going in.  Don't need to turn this into Woodruff Rd.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/greenville/downtown/2016/08/20/residents-challenge-augusta-road-fast-food-plan/88997480/

There is already a petition up asking the city to deny the drive thru special exception:

https://www.change.org/p/board-of-zoning-appeals-stop-chick-fil-a-from-locating-on-augusta-street

[cabelagent]

2 hours ago, sc smitty said:

Plans for the Augusta St Chick-fil-A are going before the city, first to the Board of Zoning Appeals to get a special exemption for their drive thru.  Hard to comment without seeing a plan posted yet, but I would be hesitant to make exceptions for more suburban sprawl type development coming to Augusta St. I hope this isn't the typical stand alone fast food restaurant.  We've already got the big box grocery store going in.  Don't need to turn this into Woodruff Rd.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/greenville/downtown/2016/08/20/residents-challenge-augusta-road-fast-food-plan/88997480/

There is already a petition up asking the city to deny the drive thru special exception:

https://www.change.org/p/board-of-zoning-appeals-stop-chick-fil-a-from-locating-on-augusta-street

Augusta St. has a LONG way in becoming Woodruff Rd. I think CFA could pull their plans if denied a drive-thru. There are worse things that could develop on Augusta than a good restaurant with a drive-thru. 

[gman430]

I'm confused. What's wrong with Harris Teeter going in there?  It's turning a crappy shopping center into something great that will have better tenants and more foot traffic than ever before. As a person who lives at South Ridge, I support them and CFA coming to Augusta Road.

Edited August 21, 2016 by gman430

[mallguy]

I still don't see why a Harris Teeter is needed there.  The downtown Publix and the Bi-Lo near the hospital have served the area fine.

I love Chick-fil-A but I also don't see why one is needed there,either; the McAlister Square and mini-downtown locations suffice. 

What will happen to Saluda River; will it close for good or move?  I'd be very upset to lose that store.

[cabelagent]

15 minutes ago, mallguy said:

I still don't see why a Harris Teeter is needed there.  The downtown Publix and the Bi-Lo near the hospital have served the area fine.

I love Chick-fil-A but I also don't see why one is needed there,either; the McAlister Square and mini-downtown locations suffice. 

What will happen to Saluda River; will it close for good or move?  I'd be very upset to lose that store.

Oh my...you're comparing HT with Publix & Bi Lo?  I wish HT would build near us...and I live off Woodruff Rd in Five Forks vicinity.

 

 

Edited August 22, 2016 by cabelagent

[Spes]

1 hour ago, mallguy said:

I still don't see why a Harris Teeter is needed there.  The downtown Publix and the Bi-Lo near the hospital have served the area fine.

This mistakes the fact that the decision comes from the property owner and the HT franchisee, not the city or anybody worried about what is "sufficient" for the area. Obviously HT thinks there is enough demand (now and in the future) to justify the location, and whether they're right will remain to be seen. 

1 hour ago, cabelagent said:

What will happen to Saluda River; will it close for good or move?  I'd be very upset to lose that store.

considering that the property owner is planning to tear down the building, maybe don't get your hopes up

[johnpro318]

2 hours ago, mallguy said:

I still don't see why a Harris Teeter is needed there.  The downtown Publix and the Bi-Lo near the hospital have served the area fine.

I love Chick-fil-A but I also don't see why one is needed there,either; the McAlister Square and mini-downtown locations suffice. 

What will happen to Saluda River; will it close for good or move?  I'd be very upset to lose that store.

They are moving to the corner of East North and Pleasantburg.

[mallguy]

12 hours ago, cabelagent said:

Oh my...you're comparing HT with Publix & Bi Lo?  I wish HT would build near us...and I live off Woodruff Rd in Five Forks vicinity.

 

 

I've shopped at HTs for years, and Publix for years. Publix is rated at least equal to, if not more highly than, HT in all sorts of ratings,including in Consumer Reports.

HT is a nicer store than Bi-Lo but the lower-income areas as you go further away from Augusta are more Bi-Lo type areas and their residents are likely well-satisfied by Bi-Lo, just as they are with the Church Street K-mart.

[sc smitty]

13 hours ago, gman430 said:

I'm confused. What's wrong with Harris Teeter going in there?  It's turning a crappy shopping center into something great that will have better tenants and more foot traffic than ever before. As a person who lives at South Ridge, I support them and CFA coming to Augusta Road.

Absolutely nothing wrong with Harris Teeter coming to Augusta St.  A nice grocery store would be a great addition to the area. The plan that is going in could have been done a lot better though.  The main thing that bothers me is the scale of the project. It's basically a big box store set all the way at the back of a big parking lot, which is more of what you see on roods like Woodruff, Pleasantburg, or any of the other boring roads with generic development of the same fast food chains and big box stores behind a sea of parking. What makes Augusta St different from the others is it's scale, with smaller shopping centers that have local or independent shops mixed together in the same building with the restaurant chains. There are no big box stores on Augusta, but a properly sized grocery store could have fit in a lot better.  Bringing the store closer to the road, something like Publix at McBee (30,000 sf vs the 53,000 sf Harris Teeter) would give a better streetscape, and hide some of the parking in back. There was nothing "crappy" about the original Lewis Plaza that couldn't have been improved with some updating. The old layout had a great pedestrian feel to it, and the old post office looked way better than what's replacing it. I hope we don't end up trashing what everybody likes about living off Augusta.

[chuckyvt]

I agree that having the shopping center pulled forward to the road would be ideal.  However I don't think you could work it out whole leaving the existing row of shops.  The grocery store would take up all the parking for the shops.   They probably would have to bulldoze the entire plaza to get the layout you are describing, and I don't think anyone has the appetite for that.  

[gman430]

Ummm...Publix has a sea of parking in front of it. Still don't really see the difference between that and the HT.  

Edited August 22, 2016 by gman430

[GvilleSC]

^^^ Not between the store and the street. The parking is hid behind the building and Publix's front is actually at the rear of the building/development. 

[btoy]

As someone who lives downtown and Chick Fil A with a Drive thru is needed badly, at least in my opinion.  The city just let Panera add a drive through to their store.

[johnpro318]

I mean you have Walgreens, CVS, Panera, Subway, United bank, McDonalds ... and now they want to go up and arms against the one place (Chick-fil-A) that does Drive thrus and traffic management well? Seems odd to start the fight here.

[Gville29601]

4 hours ago, btoy said:

As someone who lives downtown and Chick Fil A with a Drive thru is needed badly, at least in my opinion.  The city just let Panera add a drive through to their store.

You can't compare a Panera drive through with Chick Fil-A. That is apples and oranges. Zoe's has a "drive-thru", but does it get the traffic McDonald's does? Not by a country mile. You can't keep a straight face and say the Chick Fil-A will have the same amount of drive-thru traffic as Panera currently does. 

2 hours ago, johnpro318 said:

I mean you have Walgreens, CVS, Panera, Subway, United bank, McDonalds ... and now they want to go up and arms against the one place (Chick-fil-A) that does Drive thrus and traffic management well? Seems odd to start the fight here.

The businesses you cited either already had a drive-thru before the rule was put in effect (McDonalds), or local residents (who drive on Augusta, every day) were not worried by the location of the drive thru or the amount of potential customers (i.e. Panera).

I understand why local residents are concerned. Drive down Augusta between Mills Ave. and Mauldin Rd. in the morning, during the lunch hour, or after work - prime Chick Fil-A hours. There are no turn lanes. There are lots of traffic lights. Everything backs up, way up. Traffic then spills over into side residential streets. Their streets are now seeing a much higher volume of traffic that moves at fast speeds - creating a nuisance and endangering their children and/or pets. A HT is being built, and now Chick Fil-A, a restaurant that brings notoriously high traffic volumes wants to come in. I wouldn't want one there, either. So I'm not surprised by the push-back.

Frankly, I don't think the Chicken did it's due diligence here. A much better spot would be Mills Ave. across the street from the Hardees, IMHO. I predict the residents will win this fight. 

 

[sc smitty]

Well, here's the proposed plan:  

http://www.greenvillesc.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Item/3095?fileID=8654

I'm not opposed to a Chick-fil-a somewhere on Augusta, it just seems forced on this site, and taking up 3/4 of the street frontage to see nothing but drive through lanes and parking doesn't do much for creating a very nice streetscape.  A drive through on a restaurant like Panera or Zoe's blends in a lot better when it's part of a larger shopping center.  It would be perfectly reasonable to make a exception for a drive through that's discreetly hidden, but here it's very obviously front and center.  Not exactly the neighborhood oriented, pedestrian friendly development the city has supposed planned for this corridor, and I think they would have a hard time justifying the need for a special exception.

[mallguy]

CFA should go to the shopping center where Panera is and should take the old CVS space.  Surely that could be reconfigured to have a drive-through, even though it wouldn't be a typical CFA format.

[ausrutherford]

Yea, not the best ideal lot for this development on Augusta. Kind of torn by this. The area needs a CFA, but this is not the best site for this.

One thing the residents might not know and what they complained about. The reason why both entrances are on side streets (which those neighborhoods do not like) is because SCDOT protested the prior plan for they worried drive thru traffic would back up onto Augusta. 

[btoy]

This is quite a change from the plan I saw back in the winter.

[mallguy]

The perfect solution:

Chick-fil-A at McBee Station!

It's downtown and thus walkable from Main St., and it has plenty of parking and no risk of back-ups for a drive-through!

Plus when Publix goes, the space could be demolished and rebuilt as a CFA and perhaps small store space.

Problem solved!