Spartanburg City News

We've spent a lot of time on the City Podcast over the years chronicling Downtown Spartanburg's rise. We've covered historic redevelopments, transformative new construction projects, new City streetscaping, restaurant and retail openings, and events that cater to our diverse, newly vibrant downtown crowds. Along the way, we've also tried our best to contextualize each of these pieces of the downto...

It's been one of the most highly anticipated new Downtown Spartanburg developments since its announcement last year, and starting May 19, preschool-aged children from throughout our community will have a new space to call their own as The Children's Museum of the Upstate opens their new space at 130 Magnolia Street. The new 6,000 square-foot museum features interactive exhibits geared towards chil...

Smith's Drugs, a fixture in Downtown Spartanburg for nearly a century, is set to see a major upgrade as plans were recently revealed to demolish the business's current one-story storefront at 142 E Main St and replace it with a new multi-story mixed-use building featuring a much larger footprint that will occupy much of the current parking lot next door and will include much more ground-floor reta...

It's the culmination of a process that started back in 2012 when discussions about water quality and neighborhood redevelopment on our city's Northside led to an idea: why not resurrect an old waterway underneath the Northside neighborhood and create a park that could serve as a focal point for a reinvigorated Northside? Fast-forward through a few years of collaborative neighborhood planning, desi...

Walking through Downtown Spartanburg these days is a feast for the eyes. New buildings and renovated historic icons, new original upscale dining and nightlife options, and a corresponding level of activity that hasn't been seen in decades are the story of our city's core in 2018, and that level of growth and energy shows no signs of waning. The downtown boom isn't just something local bureaucrats...

When the City Podcast began more than five years ago, the thinking behind it was relatively simple. First, humanize local governemnt. The podcast created an opportunity for listeners to literally hear the voices and get to know the personalities of the people who spend their days serving the residents of our city, with the hope being that folks would recognize that all these "government bureaucrat...

Spartanburg's west side is about to get its own premier play space as a new park at the Downtown Memorial Airport (500 Ammons Rd.) is set to hold a grand opening celebration on Saturday, April 14 at 10 a.m. The nearly 4-acre park features aviation-themed elements throughout and includes two playgrounds, one for children 5-12 and another for children aged 2-5, as well as a splash pad, multipurpose...

After five years on the scene, it's managed to become one of the most anticipated annual events in downtown Spartanburg with the move to Morgan Square in 2015 further raising the bar, folks throughout Spartanburg are gearing up for the return of Hub City Hog Fest, April 6–7. With dozens of teams competing in three categories, opportunities to sample some of the smokey goodness will abound, and the...

If you were wondering whether all that Downtown Spartanburg growth we keep talking about had stalled out in 2018...no. No, it hasn't. Not at all. With announcements coming with almost metronomic regularity these days, the problem lately is just keeping up with it all. Already this year has seen big openings like Level 10, The Silo at RJ Rockers, Blue Moon Specialty Foods, Bar 1884, and The Farmer'...

If we've said it once, we've said it...a lot more than once: Spartanburg does partnerships as well as any city in the country. Our community stitches together the interests and energies of the public, private, and various nonprofit sectors in innovative ways that create the fabric of this wonderful place we call home. Today on the podcast, we're talking about another of those partnerships, with Ce...

It was over 20 years ago when RJ Rockers first opened its doors in Downtown Spartanburg as a brewpub on Morgan Square, and while the journey for Spartanburg's signature craft brewer has taken them to heights far beyond those relatively modest beginnings, in the years since their return to downtown in 2009, folks have been wondering if the food would ever make a return. Thanks to some law changes o...

Did you know that there are more than 1,200 arts & culture programs, studios, facilities and activities available across the Upstate? The Culture Counts Forum being held at Chapman Cultural Center on Wednesday, January 24, 3–5 p.m. promises to both unveil a new regional arts & culture assets map to highlight Upstate those cultural assets and to show how they impact area economic development. Also...

At their meeting earlier this week, City Council approved the final reading of an ordinance allowing limited use of LED digital for city businesses and institutions. Under the new rules, only "monument" signs no taller than 6 ft. would be allowed to contain digital signage, and no more than 30 percent of a sign could feature lighted digital messaging. Other requirements include: • Messages must re...

This week on the City Podcast we've got part two of our conversation with two of the most knowledgeable local historians we know, Brad Steinecke, Assistant Director of Local History at the Spartanburg County Public Library and Phillip Stone, Archivist at Wofford College. We're taking this moment, at the end of one of the biggest years for development that Downtown Spartanburg has ever seen, to try...

As we're heading towards the end of another spectacular year of the biggest boom Downtown Spartanburg has experienced in anyone's memory, we thought this might be a good moment to get together with two of the most knowledgeable local historians we know, Brad Steineke, Assistant Director of Local History at the Spartanburg County Public Library and Phillip Stone, Archivist at Wofford College, to tr...

Local favorite Little River Roasting has announced plans for a second downtown location to be housed inside the historic Montgomery Building once renovations are completed in October 2018. The new storefront will join their original downtown location at 188 W Main Street, which opened its doors in 2010 and a drive-thru location on E Main Street. The move comes on the heels of a pair of other downt...

Last month, a local theater project, curated by Anna Abhau Elliott and Crystal Tennille Irby, highlighted one of Spartanburg's least understood historical periods, Reconstruction. "Untitled Reconstruction Project" is based on 1871 Congressional Joint Select Committee testimony of residents living in Spartanburg County who were terrorized by the Ku Klux Klan. For the project, interviews were adapte...

It won't merit mention in national stories about proposed federal tax reform legislation that recently passed the House, but for folks in Spartanburg excited for historic redevelopments like the Montgomery Building project and community enhancements like the Northside's Franklin School, changes may be coming that would severely curtail similar projects in the future. A pair of tax credits that hav...

We've talked a lot about Spartanburg's emerging reputation as a foodie town on the podcast. Over the last few years, our local restaurant scene has taken off in ways few people would've imagined a decade ago, with new and exciting concepts opening with almost metronomic regularity. Against that backdrop, a book celebrating Spartanburg's food culture seems perfectly timed, and it's no surprise that...

We've talked a lot about growth in downtown Spartanburg on our City Podcast. We've talked about restaurants, retail shops, historic redevelopment projects, and new construction galore. Whatever sector you care to look at, there's an example of unprecedented growth to be found. Public art in our downtown has been no exception to that trend. Projects like Seeing Spartanburg in a New Light and Lighte...

An innovative new kind of community garden is coming to Spartanburg's Southside, starting with a kick-off event to be held this Friday, Nov. 3, 3 p.m.–6 p.m. Daniel Zongrone was awarded the 2017 ArtsXcelerator Grant from the Chapman Cultural Center to install the edible art garden, which will be located on the corner of S Church Street and Marion Avenue. Dubbed a STEAM (science, technology, engine...

A challenging seven-acre lot behind the Chapman Cultural Center that had been vacant for years is slated to become home to the largest apartment development in downtown Spartanburg's history after City Council unanimously approved a development agreement with Forge Capital Partners, LLC of Tampa, Florida to construct a $30 million complex. Preliminary site plans show a mix of three and four-story...

As it is in much of the South, Reconstruction is one of Spartanburg's least understood historical periods. A tumultuous time that is often glossed over, sandwiched between the Civil War and our area's well-covered industrialization and rise as a textile manufacturing powerhouse, Reconstruction in the Upstate was a bloody time when the Ku Klux Klan and other paramilitary groups terrorized African A...

It's been 10 years since Chapman Cultural Center first opened its doors on St John Street, anchoring the northern end of downtown and establishing itself as an epicenter for arts and culture in Spartanburg from the very beginning. Today, with 350,000 visitors annually, it's easy to see how the vision and investment from private and public partners has paid dividends for our entire community. On Su...

It was one of last year's unexpected downtown hits and on September 30, the Melting Pot Music Festival will return to downtown Spartanburg for an encore. Featuring a diverse lineup of funk, folk,hip hop, reggae, indie rock, and much more, the festival is set to include three packed stages. Melting Pot will also include art vendors and live art demonstrations, a craft beer garden, street performers...