The Tale of Downtown Spartanburg?s Development

The tale of Downtown Spartanburg’s development can be told in two maps.

In a 2013 map, the logos of some of Downtown’s major developments, restaurants and businesses can be seen, but there’s still space on the map that needs to be filled in. In early 2018, that same map is drastically different.

“Fast forward five years, and we can’t even fit all the logos on the screen,” said Jansen Tidmore, executive vice president of the Downtown Development Partnership, during the Spartanburg Area Chamber of Commerce’s FYI Friday event last week. “We’re up to 39 restaurants, 34 retailers, 1.4 million square feet of office space. What you’re noticing is density building. That density is what brings people.”

“At a margin of five to one, community members surveyed by OneSpartanburg said they want to see the Downtown renaissance continue,” Tidmore said. “We knew we wanted to keep that going but knew we had to manage the growth in a sustainable way.”

The Downtown Development Partnership was born of efforts surrounding OneSpartanburg. Since the organization has gotten off the ground, the Spartanburg DDP has worked to drive economic development for Downtown, working to build vibrancy and a sense of place in the heart of Spartanburg.

“This is about having a community that has something for everyone, a sense of belonging,” Tidmore said.

Last year, the Downtown Development Partnership installed pedestrian traffic counters to get a better idea of how much foot traffic Downtown Spartanburg saw and where it was most heavily concentrated. One was placed near the AC Hotel Spartanburg as it was under construction.

In the 30 days before the hotel opened and the 30 days after, the traffic counter in front of the AC Hotel saw a 17 percent uptick in traffic.

“That’s the type of trend we’re looking for,” Tidmore said.

With so many major projects – Aug W. Smith on East Main Street, the Main and Pine development, the Gibbs Center behind the Spartanburg Marriott and the Montgomery Building – opening soon, Downtown’s foot traffic will likely continue to increase.

Downtown Spartanburg has also seen tremendous growth in the food and beverage sector, with 24 places to eat and drink opening or announcing plans to open in the past year.

“Spartanburg is a foodie lover’s dream,” Tidmore said. “It used to be where I could hit my restaurants every two or three weeks, make my rotation. It’s taking four to five weeks to make my rotations now.”

Residential growth has also hit Downtown Spartanburg, with 151 apartments coming online over the course of the next year, the first of which will be at the Aug W. Smith building. The number of apartments Downtown could continue to grow, possibly jumping over 1,000 in coming years.

“Residential is something that’s really booming for us right now,” he said.

Another chunk of retail and residential space will open when renovations at the Montgomery Building on Church Street are complete.

The life, death and rebirth of the Montgomery Building parallels the evolution of Downtown Spartanburg well.

“No matter how much progress Spartanburg had in the 2000s and 2010s, people would point at that building and say, ‘yeah, that’s nice, but you have a building falling down in the middle of Downtown. Not only does it bring us 63 apartments, 28,000 square feet of office space, but it took this example of decline and reversed it to this beacon of success.”