Spartanburg just got a little sweeter.
Melissa Bearden Spearman just moved her bakery Sugah Cakes to an East Main Street storefront. Sugah Cakes previously operated out of the Home and Garden Classics store on Pine Street.
Sugah Cakes is known for its custom frosted cookies, cakes and especially cupcakes. The store s slogan on its Facebook description reads, If our cupcakes were any fresher, they d still be in the oven!
The bakery has a cupcake bus that s available for events. They also sell cupcakes out of the bus at Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System s main campus and the Mary Black hospital on Wednesdays.
To Wilma Moore, the Highland neighborhood is the best place in the world to be.
That s why Spartanburg City Council s unanimous vote to approve the Highland Transformation Plan in late November meant so much to her.
She s lived in Highland since she was 11 and has worked at the United Way of the Piedmont for years advocating for her neighborhood. The transformation plan serves as a beacon of hope for the revitalization of Highland, which she s seen through all its ups and downs.
Finally, Moore s neighborhood is getting the attention and investment she thinks it deserves. I want everyone to know that Highland is the best place in the world to be. We have people that have lived there all their lives. Everybody cares about everyone else, Moore said.
1. County courthouse and city/county municipal complex
If you ve driven down Daniel Morgan Avenue lately, you ve probably seen the big crane and progress on the Spartanburg County courthouse project. The parking deck and nearby central energy plant will be completed by June 30, 2021, Britt said.
After the courthouse is complete, a new joint city/county municipal building will be built as part of the same project funded by a penny sales tax.
Britt said the courthouse and new municipal complex will be a good adrenaline spurt for downtown merchants. It ll make it so much more walkable for our associates at the county and in the city. And it will be a big complex.
In June of this year, the small community of Little Africa in northern Spartanburg County found itself in the middle of the local news cycle amid nationwide protests for racial justice when swastikas and racial slurs were discovered on the neighborhood s signs, guardrails, and bridges. Things gonna change. It don t come when you want it to come, but God gonna let it change, Cora Martin of Little Africa told the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in July, not long after the vandalism had been cleaned up by the community.
And things definitely have changed in the five months since then. The community hasn t seen any more vandalism, but there s still mixed morale, according to resident Sundra Proctor Smith.
Spartanburg s downtown is full of restaurants, shops, and apartments and is home to a bustling Main Street. But how has it changed over the years to become the downtown Spartanburg residents know and love today?
Here s a look at downtown Spartanburg s history from when it gained its city status in 1880 to the recent revitalization of the 2000s.
The textile boom
In 1873, the railroad that ran from New York to New Orleans was built with a stop in Spartanburg, enabling the textile industry boom that ruled the economy for many years, according to Brad Steinecke, assistant director of local history for the Spartanburg County Public Libraries.