Vacationing in the New Downtown Greenville, South Carolina
Greenville's New Riverplace Development
Since it’s not exactly a booming metropolis, you probably haven’t heard of Greenville, South Carolina. With the antics of Mark Sanford and others, South Carolina has probably left you with much to be desired. Yet despite this, Greenville, South Carolina is positioning themselves to be a premier vacation spot in the south.
Located less than an hour from the Smokey Mountains, Greenville offers a convenient location at the base of the mountains, a couple hours from the beach and a couple hours from Atlanta, Georgia. This is just the beginning of Greenville’s lure to tourists. However, this hasn’t been the case until very recently. To be honest, downtown Greenville was a dump just 10 years ago. You know the scene from movies where the tumbleweed rolls through Main Street of a desolate downtown? Well that was Greenville. Restaurants and bars had their regulars, but streets had little foot traffic and there was little entertainment on the weekends to attract patrons. However, this has recently changed with the revitalization of downtown Greenville.
Today is a different story as Greenville offers a bustling downtown area. Many Greenville restaurant patios are often filled even on weekday evenings with patrons enjoying drinks and even live music. Outdoor events such as Artisphere, Downtown Alive and Fall for Greenville bring national and regional musicians, artists and other professionals. After losing their professional hockey team a few years ago, the city is set to welcome a new professional hockey team next year. And maybe the biggest attraction, the Peace Center, brings the most popular Broadway acts to Greenville each year. The world-renowned show Wicked, which is one of the best shows I’ve ever seen, recently produced 50,000 ticket sales over a three-week period with most of those sales from out of town visitors.
If you need more reasons to visit Greenville, then you may want to wait a couple months when Greenville opens Main @ Broad. Opening in May in time of one of the nation’s most popular art events, Artisphere, this complex, which is across the street from the Peace Center, will house a Marriott Hotel, restaurants and many boutique shops. Main @ Broad is located at what is quickly becoming Greenville’s city center with many other hotels, restaurants and attractions within a few blocks. With its debut in May, it opens just in time for the summer traveling season.
So if you’re planning a trip to the southeast this summer or just looking for a new location for your spring and summer vacation plans, then you may want to consider the vibrant downtown Greenville area, which certainly shows the potential of being a major attraction of the southeast.
Photos courtesy of the Hampton Inn and Suites Greenville Downtown Riverplace by Scott Holloway.