City's Design Review Board approves plans for Main and Pine development

A crucial corner at one of the city's most important downtown gateway intersections is set to get a huge makeover with construction of a new 19,000 square foot development on the southeast corner of E Main and Pine streets. Anchored by United Community Bank, the two-story building will feature new office and retail space and is set help transform one of the busiest intersections in Spartanburg. On Wednesday, the City's Design Review Board gave final approval to the project after initially requesting some changes to the design at their meeting in August, clearing the way for development to move forward. In addition to being a huge win for Spartanburg, the Main and Pine development is also a good test case for us to get down to the nitty-gritty on a few of our weightier local government topics, planning. What was the reasoning behind Design Review Board's requested changes in their previous meeting? How does working with developers on their designs fit in with other improvements the City undertakes downtown? What is the overall goal in regulating the design of structures built in the downtown area in the first place? To the layperson, the deliberation between regulating bodies and developers might seem unnecessary, perhaps even an example of government overreach, but the underlying reason behind all if it couldn't be simpler: thoughtful planning ensures that the individual pieces of our city fit together to form a better whole than if each piece were considered solely in isolation. Today on the podcast, we've got City Senior Planner, Natalia Rosario to help us answer those questions.