Spartanburg's 2014 to-do list to get done this year

Published: Sunday, January 4, 2015 at 11:14 p.m. Last Modified: Sunday, January 4, 2015 at 11:14 p.m.

In the first quarter of the year, city officials expect the new Wall Street development, with storefronts on the lower level and nine residential units on top, to open this month. A juice bar a first for downtown plans to open in the next few weeks, and Hub Diggity Dog is also expected to locate in the development. There is also a third storefront in the building.

Not far from the Wall Street development, Dottie's Toffee founder Nick Belmont plans to open a retail storefront in February. The new location at 155 W. Main St. includes an exhibition kitchen where people can watch the candy-making process. Using his grandmother's toffee recipe, Belmont and his staff currently make milk and dark chocolate toffee in small batches out of a small commercial kitchen on Spring Street.

City Communications Manager Will Rothschild said the Wall Street festival street concept will be completed in January.

The street is being reconfigured from a vehicular street to a festival street with brick pavers and space for outdoor seating. The street will have no curbs or sidewalks, and pedestrian and vehicular driving lanes will be distinguished by different colors and paver patterns.

After the completion of Wall Street, the city will begin work on Magnolia Street improvements. Wall and Magnolia street plans are part of $2.3 million in streetscape, biking and pedestrian improvements City Council approved in late 2013. The city's plan to improve Magnolia Street includes removing the street trees that are in the sidewalk and opening up that section.

The city will wrap up work on its $2.5 million parks and recreation improvement plan with a new playground installation at Happy Hollow park, the last one to receive a play structure, and work will start on a new Stewart Park activity center.

The city will open its new multipurpose athletic field at the C.C. Woodson Community Center the field was partially financed by a National Football League grant. Rothschild said completing work at the field, along with the new outdoor playground equipment installed in November, is the final piece of the puzzle for C.C. Woodson.

The city plans to make headway on daylighting the Butterfly Creek in the Northside community. There is no official timeline yet, Rothschild said, but some preliminary work could be done on the creek that runs through the community. The city, the Northside Development Group and other partners are working to secure a $30 million federal grant to help with revitalization efforts on the Northside.

City officials are optimistic the Hub City Cooperative grocery store board of directors will be able to raise $350,000 to open the state's first cooperative grocery. In May, City Council agreed to offer the group a $200,000 zero-interest loan and provide a $150,000 operations assistance grant that would be paid out monthly during the first four years of operation.

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Spartanburg's 2014 to-do list to get done this year