Spartanburg City News Podcast

Join all of us at the City in welcoming our new City News Podcast cohost, Meghan Smith!

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.

Popular local barbecue festival enters third year on Morgan Square

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. Today on the podcast, we're getting the lowdown on where Downtown Spartanburg is in Spring 2018 and where we could possibly be heading from here.

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. Today on the podcast, we're talking about another of those partnerships, with Central United Methodist Church Pastor Tom Norrell and Lay Leader John Simmons about a new park slated to open behind the church.

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. Wonder no more!

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. 

City Council approved the final reading of an ordinance allowing limited use of LED digital for city businesses and institutions. What does all that mean? How did City staff go about crafting the ordinance? Are we going to be inundated with calls from residents complaining that the church next door has a sign blasting light from a thousand suns into their bedroom windows (probably not)? Check out this week's Podcast with City Senior Planner, Natalia Rosario to find out.

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 to contextualize this current moment in our urban core's history by taking a look at how we got here.

Part one of our conversation with local historians, Brad Steineke and Phillip Stone about the history of Downtown Spartanburg

Local favorite Little River Roasting has announced plans for a second downtown location to be housed inside the historic Montgomery Building. Today on the Podcast, we're talking with Daniel Hagerman and Tyler Gibbs of Little River about the planned expansion, and we take stock of both the local coffee scene and the downtown culture that's grown up in Spartanburg since Little River's opening seven years ago.

Today on the podcast, we're talking with Elliott, Irby, and the Spartanburg County Public Library's Brad Steineke about their experiences with Untitled Reconstruction Project, the reaction from audience members who saw the performance, and the connections between that time in Spartanburg's history and our present day.

Future historic renovations and community redevelopment efforts threatened by federal tax changes recently passed by House

Hub City Press title celebrates Spartanburg food from farm to table

Taking a look at a project that's using perhaps the most mundane of all possible canvasses to add some more color to our downtown, while promoting the seven colleges in our area. Eric Kocher with Hub-Bub and Naomi Sargent join us today to talk about this unique partnership and give us the lowdown on how these simple utility boxes are now being transformed into works of art.