When out-of-town travelers visit the Upstate, they often find themselves at the Upstate’s primary airport – GSP. Some airport codes don’t make a lot of sense (I’m looking at you, MCO), but that’s not the case with GSP, which stands for “Greenville-Spartanburg.” What’s more often the case is that the people who fly into GSP are coming for the “G,” not the “SP.” And that’s understandable. Greenville has grown used to being in the spotlight – a spotlight that has catapulted a once obscure city at the corner of SC, NC, GA, and TN into the fourth fastest-growing city in the US.
In fact, if our international airport were renamed, GMA would probably be more appropriate than GSP, since Greenville, Mauldin, and Anderson were the metro areas that the US Census used to come up with their “fourth-fastest growing city” distinction. So the question should be asked: has Spartanburg been lost in the shuffle?
Jansen Tidmore, the new Executive Vice President of Spartanburg Downtown Development Partnership doesn’t think so. In an article in GSA Business Report, Tidmore describes the city as a “quiet giant” that stands out for its “cleanliness… and the emphasis on arts and culture.”
In fact, if we’re going to talk about Greenville being in the spotlight, Spartanburg got a pretty big shoutout recently in the form of a front cover of SLAM magazine, featuring Spartanburg Day School basketball star Zion Williamson, who has been compared to the likes of NBA stars Lebron James and Russell Westbrook. SLAM is the de facto king of basketball magazines, so this mention should not be taken lightly.
But Spartanburg is held back by it’s gnarly crime rates. The website Neighborhood Scout, which among other things, rates how safe neighborhoods are, gave Spartanburg the lowest possible rating for safety. It also wasn’t too long ago that Spartanburg city officials were trying to dispute a website’s claim that their city was the 12th most dangerous in the US. These types of statistics certainly don’t help Spartanburg’s cause.
That said, there are reasons for optimism. For one, the city’s downtown passes the “eye test.” What I mean is that Downtown Spartanburg looks like (and is) a genuinely nice place to visit, with an artsy fartsy flair and plenty of great restaurants. Sometimes that’s all that it takes for a big corporation or real estate developer to take a risk on a city. And with its proximity to Greenville, why not? Real estate east of Greenville is pennies on the dollar in comparison to the rest of the Upstate, but it is still the Upstate. Many of the things that attract people to Greenville are also true about Spartanburg – the climate, the “day-tripability,” the food scene, the art scene, etc. In other words, Spartanburg has huge “buy low” potential for investors.
And it’s already proven to be a good city for corporations. Public companies Synalloy and Denny’s (ranked by Business Insider as the 20th best franchise in the world) both have their headquarters in Spartanburg, with Denny’s being right on Main Street.
So what is the future for the “SP” in GSP? If people like Jansen Tidmore, local law enforcement, and the others who are working towards building a better future for their city are able to solve its crime problem, it’s not hard to imagine the economic and population boom that Greenville has experienced moving east.
I’m no investment advisor, but I believe that those who buy low in Spartanburg now and are willing to hold onto their assets for 10-15 years have a good chance of seeing exponential appreciation of rental prices, real estate values, etc. There is greater risk in Spartanburg than there is in Greenville, but there is also the potential for greater reward.