FLORENCE, S.C. — Hard hats have been the fashion trend in downtown Florence for the year or so.
And now, after years of preparation, Florentines are about to find out what all the fuss is about.
Later this month, the Hotel Florence, plus a half dozen or so complementary projects, will open the doors on phase I of what is arguably the biggest redevelopment project in city history.
The opening of the new, 49-room boutique hotel on West Evans, along with a dozen or more other projects that will debut simultaneously or over the next few months, signals the beginning of what planners and city leaders hope is a downtown renaissance that will spread and grow.
Mayor Stephen J. Wukela, who has led the charge in recent months, said, as he toured the area one afternoon this week, that it can’t happen soon enough.
“It’s been a long time coming and it’s an exciting month and everything seems to be hitting at the same time and we’re excited,” Wukela said. “It’s been a lot of work and there’s a lot of people that have invested, time, money, effort and it’s coming to fruition, so it’s exciting. Just walk down Evans Street and you’ll see people are rubbernecking, trying to see what’s going on, and the other good thing is you see developers and realtors milling about and looking at properties, which is obviously a very good sign.”
Florence Downtown Development Manager Ray Reich, who arrived a little more than a year ago and has helped shepherd many of the projects, said this month’s big openings are really just the beginning. Momentum will grow as projects are completed and more businesses are lured to the area by the finished projects, and by the area’s new look, fostered by the city’s aggressive new appearance codes.
“We’re working with a lot of different people who are trying to put projects together from restaurants to apartments,” said Reich. “This is the kind of momentum that you get when you start dealing with appearance issues that we put emphasis on.
“Our number one priority is adding more restaurants,” said Reich. “We really want downtown to become a culinary district. … Retail will follow as we create more spaces for retailers to operate. We have three different entities looking at possibly doing housing (i.e, condos, extended-stay apartments), four to five entities for five restaurant projects and we know all these things won’t come to fruition, but working with this many different people, the hope is that multiple projects will come to reality.”
Reich said interested parties are still doing their due diligence and looking into financing, which can still be difficult to obtain.
The linchpin of the first wave of revitalization is clearly the Hotel Florence, and the new Victor’s Bistro on its first floor. When it opens — some furniture could be moved in early this week — the combo figures to be a hive of activity. The new Victor’s will be open for breakfast, creating a new business meeting place. The hotel will offer a high-end hospitality option, heretofore unavailable in Florence.
When coupled with other big projects that are also ready to open or on the way in the near future, like the new Florence Museum just across the rear parking lot from the hotel/restaurant, the sort of magnetic momentum that Reich is talking about will take hold.
Some of it is actually under way already.
Culinary district
The culinary district that Reich and others envision is already moving forward.
A significant boost will come from the city-built courtyard behind “restaurant row” on Dargan. The patio affords diners at Max Borghesi’s Da Massimo Ristorante Italiano, the Thai House 2, the Clay Pot and at Josh Keith’s chocolate shop and wine tasting room, Dolce Vita, an al fresco experience that’s not currently on Florence menu. It will be mirrored, of course, by Victor’s outdoor dining area across Dargan.
Keith’s new offering is nearly ready. He said this week that small, invitation only, soft openings are set for May 13-18 in a completely renovated, contemporary space with references to the building’s past. Keith, who finished seven months of training under top chocolatiers in Belgium last year, will bring his mastery to the delicacy to Florence’s newest sweet niche, where he will prepare and package a variety of white, milk and dark chocolate truffles, bonbons, ganache from fine Belgium chocolate and ingredients. The fine chocolates will be paired with a wide selection of wine for tasting and purchase. A unique feature at Dolce Vita — another first in the area — will be its two, eight-bottle machines (one red, one white) that allow patrons to insert a prepaid card, which then lets them dispense tastes, half pours and full pours of moderate to higher-end wine at their leisure. Bottles of dispensed wine will also be available for purchase.
“I can basically claim that I grew up downtown simply because my mother had a salon (Mahogany) here right on the corner for over 20-plus years,” Keith said. “So day in day and day out after school, I was here, downtown every day. I’ve and seen where it’s been and where it’s going, so that’s one reason why I’m so passionate about downtown.”
More restaurants are on the way. Bo Osborne’s Boxcar 9 restaurant is under construction on West Evans. Osborne is currently gutting what used to be the City Grill and Sports Bar and has plans to begin inside construction soon. Boxcar 9 will be a wood-fired, brick oven restaurant that will serve pizza, sandwiches, salads and other food for lunch and dinner. Osborne has retained chef Tommy Crayton and expects to have the project completed in the next two to three months. That timeframe is much later than he intended. It is the result, according to Osborne, of unforeseen obstacles, which typically occur in such projects.
Two more new restaurants are set to open a few blocks away on West Palmetto. And the same development group that is behind Hotel Florence has a 2,500-square-foot space next door to the hotel that it hopes to lease to a restauranteur, possible a chain deli like Jason’s or McAlister’s.
Small retail
August Langley is one of downtown’s newest tenants — one of it’s youngest, too. He recently opened his SMART Phone Repair shop with his wife, Whitney, and Michael Shaw at 190 W. Evans St. The space is leased from Andy Blakely and Robert C. Watford. Langley’s focus now is fixing broken iPhones, iPads and iPods, but he plans to expand to other products and classes on those products. He waxed philosophic on the interplay between a new tech business in an old-fashioned setting.
“We love the dichotomy of everything that SMART Phone Repair is,” Langley said. “It’s a repair shop that revitalizes devices in a downtown area that’s looking back historically, but pulling toward the future.”
Traffic for entrepreneurs like Langley could arrive next year after renovations at the Waters building — aka. the Kimbrell’s building — are complete. The hotel group — Chris Scott of Pearce Land Company, Grey Raines of Raines Development Group Inc., Randy Key of Key Architecture Inc., and Tim Norwood — is doing this one, too. Leases are already in place with investment firm Hilliard Lyons for the second floor and South Carolina-based law firm Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd, P.A., on the top floor of the building. A contract for the mezzanine and first floor of the building is nearly complete.
That business traffic will be meshed with entertainment crowds from the Florence Little Theatre, the Francis Marion University Performing Arts Center and, early next year, the new Florence Museum. Museum executive director Andrew Stout said the 28,000-square-foot museum has been delay free and is ahead of schedule with construction completion set for July. Stout said that prep work for exhibits and the task of actually moving and installing exhibits will run into early 2014.
“There’s been a lot of work and progress to the building,” said Stout. “But there has been substantial work being completed behind the scenes, especially relating to the trustees of the Florence Museum’s collections they have cared for, for many, many years.”
Adding to the mid-May festivities will be the opening of the Dargan Street breezeway, created this winter when two buildings were demolished to open a “hole” from Dargan Street to the hotel/restaurant. Landscaping and paving of the space is nearly complete.
More changes
Other changes in the works, or on the drawing board, include completion of the streetscape work by the city — new pavement went down on West Evans in the past week — and facade improvements on a half dozen buildings that do not have tenants. The city’s new code required facade upgrades. City grants helped pay for some of that work, but the cost has given some property owners pause.
On the other hand, several tenants — Phillip Nofal Jr., who owns the space at 127 W. Evans, said the façade work has increased tenant interest in their spaces.
The Florence Downtown Development Corporation, which recently purchased the Bo Smith building on the corner of Irby and West Evans, is looking hard for a tenant for the Royal Knight building at the Dargan/Evans intersection. Reich said the old formal wear shop had an interested party exploring several ideas on the property, but their option expired. That same party, said Reich, is still interested. That’s one of the spaces were longer-term living quarters are being contemplated.
Henry Alfred Revell, late owner of the shop, passed away in June. His wife of 53 years, Sherrelle Humphries Revell, decided to close the shop and the West Palmetto Street shop.
Also new is the expanded police substation on Dargan. Owner Dr. John Keith said an additional 25 officers are now located in the downtown substation that has expanded into an additional 3,000 square feet of space that also accommodates the Community Action Taskforce unit.
“Within the coming weeks, there will be an officer on duty from 12 midnight to 7 a.m., patrolling the downtown area,” said Keith.
That security presence is just one more piece of what is, suddenly, a fast-developing puzzle.
