Tony Forest didn’t have to worry much about where his customers were going to park when he opened Carriage House Wines on West Main Street a little more than four years ago.
Except for Sonny’s Brick Oven Pizza, there weren’t any other businesses.
“It was a bit lonely,” Forest said.
But he decided to take a chance on what had been a forgotten part of downtown Spartanburg because he saw potential.
“I was hoping what happened did happen,” Forest said.
Now, Forest can look across the street from his store and wine bar and see microbrewery RJ Rockers, which started as a brewpub downtown, moved away and now has moved back downtown to the old Salvation Army building at the corner of South Daniel Morgan Avenue and West Main.
Nearby are three new bars, all of which opened one weekend in November.
“At that point, you had to recognize something was happening,” said Betsy Teter, executive director of HubCulture, a nonprofit art organization that operates The Showroom at Hub-Bub.
What’s happening, she said, is the slow emergence of the western downtown area encompassing Daniel Morgan Avenue and West Main Street into an arts and entertainment area.
And business and property owners want to give it a push by giving the area its own identity.
They want the area from Hampton Heights to the county administration building to Morgan Square designated as the “Grain District.”
“It’s happened in dozens of other cities,” Teter said. “Once an area gets a name, other businesses want to go there. It becomes the hot spot.”
Take the Vista in Columbia.
Columbia Mayor Kirk Finlay coined the area around Gervais Street leading down to the Congaree River “the Vista” in the 1980s after he heard a local radio disc jockey using the term.
Restaurants, art galleries and shops have replaced decrepit warehouses and industrial buildings.
The River Arts District in Asheville was originally recognized by city officials five years ago but had been home to a small group of artists since 1993.
Because of a concerted promotional effort by the city, the district now houses more than 100 artist studios in what had been a tannery, a cotton mill and a group of warehouses. It also has restaurants and a brew pub.
And in Charlotte, a group of artists and musicians who were attracted to the North Davidson mill village by cheap rent helped transform the area into a place filled with art galleries, concert halls, restaurants, coffeehouses and bars.
The Grain District gets its name from Daniel Morgan Avenue’s most visible landmark – the silos left from the Spartan Grain and Mill Co. – and its new commercial centerpiece – RJ Rockers.
“It’s the logical direction in which downtown will grow,” sand Andrew Babb, a real estate agent who owns several buildings downtown. “Things are coming together.”
When the Showroom at HubBub located across the street from the old grainery in 2006, it was surrounded by empty buildings, Teter said.
Since then, the restaurant Brasserie Ecosse has opened and QS/1 Data Systems headquarters moved in.
QS-1’s president Bill Cobb has been buying up warehouses around his building and restoring them for the next infusion of restaurants and taverns.
“This area has empty spaces and empty property,” said Stephen Long, director of Hub-Bub who designed the Grain District logo. “This is the obvious end of downtown for what we’re envisioning happening. I see this area as a little grittier, more of the indie side of things.”
Jeff Cohen, whose store Cohens Closeouts is just outside the Grain District boundaries, said he saw a lot of parallels between the area and the Soho area of Manhattan where he lived before.
“It was a deserted neighborhood that had been an industrial area,” he said. “Businesses came in slowly and then restaurants came and then retailers came and now it is one of the most expensive real estate districts in the world. There are a lot of parallels.”
A key part to the Grain District’s redevelopment is the Spartan Grain and Mill site, now the headquarters for an electrical contracting company.
“The Grain District is lifting up our history. It’s part of our culture,” Teter said. “We need to use it to our economic advantage. There’s probably more historic buildings in a cluster here than any other developed parts of the city.”
Roger Snyder bought the old grainery in 1992 to use as office space and warehouses for his electrical business.
He said he’s looking for ideas for development of the 7.25 acres, a huge footprint in the western end of downtown.
“There’s a lot of possibilities for major development as Spartanburg grows this way,” he said of the facility that still contains old rolling flour mills from the early 1900s. “It’s a big piece of the puzzle.”
The city’s master plan calls for residential development including apartments, town homes and live-work units for artists. It also calls for retail and office space.
Teter said the district has its issues, including a lack of parking and the need to be more pedestrian-friendly with wider sidewalks, signs and better lighting.
She said those involved in the Grain District realize it is not the time for the city to spend money.
Instead, she said, they’d like for the city to start planning so it will be ready to act when its economic situation improves.
In the meantime, she said, business and property owners in the district would like to see the city incorporate the district into its economic development strategy and to promote the emerging arts and entertainment district to restaurants and arts and entertainment-related businesses looking for places to locate.
“This gives us a way to market the area to business people from further away,” said Nick Wildrick, of Longleaf Holdings and a partner in RJ Rockers. “The original investments have been made and that paves the way for businesses to come in.”
For Forest, he said key is to getting to the tipping point that will turn the area into a vibrant destination.
“I think we need a few more stores and restaurants,” he said. “We already know what the secret is. We already know why we like it. Now we just have to get a few more people to join us. Then this place will take off.”
