Tag Archive

Sparkle City Headlines: Kimbrell’s Furniture to re-open as downtown nightclub

By Steve Shanafelt

According to a story in the Feb. 17th edition of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, a new nightclub called Rome will soon be coming to downtown Spartanburg. Local businessman Josey Wells recently signed a lease on the 28,000-square-foot building, which formerly housed Kimbrell’s Furniture. According to journalist Trevor Anderson, plans for the “upscale” club include “extravagant... »

New Spark Schwag

By Steve Shanafelt

Now that we have a spiffy new logo (courtesy of local designer Stephen Long), it’s high time we starting showing it off. And what better way to do that than to suggest you buy some stuff with the logo on it from our online store. Although we’ve had an online store for a year... »

Spartanburg’s Almost-Certain Real Estate Explosion

By Steve Shanafelt

Yesterday, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal ran a story detailing the long-rumored plans of the addition of yet another college campus in downtown Spartanburg. The Blacksburg, Va.-based Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine is moving forward with a plan to bring a new four-year post-graduate medical school to the city, possibly as soon as fall... »

Crescent Gallery To Close

By Steve Shanafelt

Rogers Brandt, Director of The Crescent Gallery in downtown Spartanburg, recently announced via e-mail that the gallery will be closing for good at the end of December. Brandt citing the poor local economy as the reason, something that surely impacts a business selling mid-to-high end art pieces. The gallery has been a substantial force... »

Hub City Co-op’s Website Updated

By Steve Shanafelt

For those of you who have been following the evolution of the Hub City Co-op from good idea to actually-looking-like-it’s-really-going-to-happen store, you’ll be heartened to know that the group now has a brand-new website to replace their static information page (which, as long as we’re on the subject, replaced their free blog page,... »

Hub City Coffee Reopens Downtown Location

By Steve Shanafelt

Early this morning, something that was once thought impossible happened in downtown Spartanburg: A business that had abandoned downtown more than a year ago actually reopened its doors. The same owners restored the location, and at least one of the same employees returned to work. Hub City Coffee — a locally owned drive... »

GLBT Friendly Businesses In Spartanburg: Coming Out Party!

By Steve Shanafelt

It was recently brought to my attention that there’s no central listing for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) businesses in Spartanburg. Given the heavy prejudice against the GLBT (or LGBT if you prefer) community in the region, perhaps it’s not entirely surprising that local businesses have been a little reluctant to make... »

Big Idea: What’s Missing From Spartanburg?

By Steve Shanafelt

To look at the flood of comments and ideas generated by asking a simple question about what should replace Justin’s Steakhouse in downtown Spartanburg, it’s hard not to draw the conclusion that there’s a lot of people who hunger for more than a just a new downtown restaurant. That discussion made me start thinking... »

What Would You Like To See Replace Justin’s Steakhouse?

By Steve Shanafelt

Roland Zimmer, the owner of the building that housed the now-closed Justin’s Steakhouse in downtown Spartanburg, recently posted on the GoUpstate forums asking for ideas about the kind of restaurant people would like to see take over the space. What could be cooler than asking for that kind of feedback? And who better to ask... »

Sparkle City Headlines: Justin’s Closes, Congressional Forum Gets Spicy, And City Council Gets Earful On Annexation

By Steve Shanafelt

Today is a historic day for the Spartanburg media. So historic, in fact, that you might want to go out and buy a copy of today’s newspaper to remember it by. It’s not because there’s some epoch-defining news. It’s because today, for the first time in months, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal’s local coverage is hitting... »

UPDATE: Beltram Responds To Piedmont Republican Club Forum Bias Concerns

By Steve Shanafelt

Yesterday, the Spark posted about concerns of bias in the upcoming Piedmont Republican Club candidate forum. Beltram was contacted via e-mail in advance of the story to give his version of the situation on record. He responded late last night. His reply … In my letter to ALL candidates…..I made it very clear that I would... »

The Hub City Co-Op’s New Site And Membership Plan

By Steve Shanafelt

Although the Hub City Co-Op has been active as a Facebook group for several months, and briefly had a blog documenting some parts of their organizing efforts, they haven’t had a true home on the web. This week, however, that changed with the unveiling of their new webite, HubCityCoop.org. Although the sites content is... »

Sparkle City Headlines: Spartanburg County To Finalize Design Standards

By Steve Shanafelt

From the outside, Spartanburg County Council’s “design standards” ordinance looks like a painful set of contortions meant to avoid — or perhaps postpone — the clear need to directly address zoning in the county. Their latest effort, a revised set of standards which took some 15 hours of meetings to hammer out, was recently... »

Big Idea: The Inevitable Return Of The Free Ad Initiative

By Steve Shanafelt

Several months ago, after reading a blog post on TechCrunch about why internet advertising is failing, I decided to try an experiment. What if, instead of charging local businesses for ads, I just gave them away? After all, the site wasn’t generating enough traffic at the time to justify charging anyone to advertise (it arguably... »

Sparkle City Headlines: BankMeridian Doesn’t Leave Downtown Spartanburg

By Steve Shanafelt

This isn’t really news — it’s not much more than a press release about the Upstate branch of BankMeridian is moving from S. Liberty St. to the new building next to Carolina First on E. Main St. — but there’s a few really interesting sentences in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal story that I’d like to... »