A DVERT ISEM EN T
SAVE FALLS PARK
November 11, 2016
To: Mayor Knox White, Members of the Greenville City Council, Members of the Planning Commission, and Members of the Design Review Board – Urban and Neighborhood Panels Ladies and Gentlemen: Please save Falls Park! This is a follow up to my previous letter to you dated November 3, 2016, which also appeared in the Greenville News on Sunday, November 6, 2016. There is important additional information that you should review and consider. Everyone in Greenville who uses Falls Park rightly believes that the proposed site of this new “glass tower” to be built right up against the Main Street Bridge is part of Falls Park. Why? BECAUSE IT IS! The City’s “Riverplace Plan” connected to the Falls Park Extension Plan ($13.5 million of Greenville taxpayers’ funds alone – not counting private donations) at the Main Street Bridge. Taken together, implementation of these two complementary plans required countless dedicated City officials and private citizens to complete by investing years – many years - of hard work, and they did a wonderful job. According to the Riverplace plans, it is to be noted that on the West side of the Main Street Bridge, on the north bank where the staircase comes up to Main Street beside today’s Coldwell Banker Caine office located at 428 South Main, the city went to great lengths, and considerable EXPENSE to purchase and demolish older buildings that completely blocked the third span of the Bridge on that side. Yes, there were buildings that the City bought and removed in order to complete the plan and open up a view of all spans of the Main Street Bridge from both directions. I have old photographs that show the buildings that were purchased and demolished to open up the view of the river from the Main Street Bridge, and, just as importantly, to open up the view of all three spans of the bridge as seen from the Wyche Pavilion. What about the “Falls Park Extension” plans? The City’s published documents of that plan, including the written landscape plan by the noted landscape designer who prepared them, were executed exactly as promised to the citizens of Greenville. The diagrams provided to the public show exactly what you see today, and recorded documents show this portion of the Park just as you see it today. The City built what it agreed to build on this property: The Liberty Bridge, a plaza, an overlook, and rock and cement walkways that go all the way to the Main Street Bridge.
There is no plan for a multi-story “glass tower” office building between the Bowater Parking garage and the Main Street Bridge. This would have been an absurd use and abuse of that portion of the property. The City and its citizens would never have agreed to that. The City and its citizens must not agree to it now. Ethically and legally the City must not give away what it has built! To summarize: 1) The City has Plans in place; 2) Those plans have been faithfully executed and implemented; 3) Riverplace and Falls Park are the culmination of a well executed public and private effort that created the crown jewel of Greenville. Yes, the City must now act with foresight and dispatch to address the looming pressure to develop a comprehensive plan for the Northern boundary of Falls Park. That Northern boundary has NO PROTECTION - NONE! This requires the City to develop a comprehensive plan to protect the Northern border of Falls Park from the Main Street Bridge to the Liberty Bridge and all the way to Church Street. This brings us back to the much-flawed approval given to the “glass tower” by the Design Review Board. How did this happen? That erroneous decision was based on the simplistic notion that “This is private property, therefore they can build it.” That was an entirely erroneous and
indefensible position for the City’s Planning staff to take. No doubt the developer was in a big, big hurry. He said, “I have to have this decision tonight.” He got it. The City needs to examine its planning set-up. No doubt, the developer’s proposed tenant for the “glass tower” is in a hurry. The developer apparently has the property under contract and/or option to purchase all or some of the land from Camperdown Falls, Ltd. Partnership/ Easlan Capital, which owns the entire Bowater parcel. The proposed tenant is a prominent law firm that already owns significant property nearby on Falls Park. Sources indicate that the law firm covets spectacular conference rooms, executive office suites, and highly visible exposure in the proposed new “glass tower” that would dominate the Main Street Bridge. In urgently pressing his case for the “glass tower,” the developer actually said that the citizens of Greenville would get a great benefit from his plan to cut down nearly all of the trees (many of them quite large) on his proposed building site: “The trees are blocking the view of the Park from the Main Street Bridge. We will cut them down to provide a better view.” My specific request to the Mayor, City Council, Planning Commission, Parks Commission and Design Review Board is this: Please address the important planning issues needed to protect Falls Park now. Commence the process immediately. Suspend consideration of this request (DRB DOCKET CA 16-642) to build a “glass tower” in Falls Park until any and all important planning gaps have been addressed. I respectfully submit this letter to the above-mentioned distinguished parties on Friday, November 11, 2016. David Sweatt 300 Pettigru Street, Greenville, South Carolina, 29601 dsweatt22@gmail.com