With about $800 million in announced development projects concentrated in just a few square blocks, downtown Spartanburg will soon have a new look that is expected to accelerate the city’s ongoing renaissance.

Here’s a look at two of the projects taking shape that promise to form important anchors for the Hub City’s revival.

Spartanburg County Public Libraries planetarium

Rising from the ground at the corner of Broad and South Church streets, the $14 million planetarium project is adjacent to the Spartanburg County Public Libraries headquarters and will feature a 50-foot dome — the largest in the Upstate.

The planetarium will be the central feature of the 10,000-square-foot building and will show traditional planetarium programming or movies on a 10-degree tilting screen. 

The building will also have a lobby and classrooms on the first floor. 

A focal point of the lobby will be a Foucalt pendulum, a feature patterned after an experiment in the 19th century by French physicist Leon Foucalt to demonstrate the Earth’s rotation.

The second floor will house the Kitty Black Perkins Maker Lab, which honors the Spartanburg native and Carver High School graduate who is credited with designing the first Black Barbie.

The third floor will accommodate more library offices and free up space for programming in the Headquarters Library.

Construction is expected to be complete by June 2025, according to Todd Stephens, Spartanburg County librarian.

Fifth Third Park baseball stadium

Perhaps no other project promises to redefine Spartanburg’s urban landscape as significantly as the city’s new baseball stadium emerging near the intersection of South Daniel Morgan Avenue and West Broad Street.

The anchor of a planned $425 million mixed-used development, Fifth Third Park will be home to the city’s minor league baseball team, the Spartanburgers, and will occupy most of a 16-acre parcel overlooked by the AC Hotel Spartanburg on West Main Street.

The team, which is a Texas Rangers affiliate and has been based in Kinston, North Carolina, as the Down East Wood Ducks, will begin play in Spartanburg after the ballpark’s expected completion in April 2025.

The project is being spearheaded by Spartanburg’s own The Johnson Group and is expected to eventually include about 200,000 square feet of office space, around 300 apartments and a 150-room hotel — all spanning a footprint of more than four city blocks.

Ohio-based Fifth Third Bank secured naming rights for the new stadium as part of a broader expansion in the region, including $15 million to open several new branches locally.

Downtown Spartanburg projects to watch

One of the projects Spartanburg County voters approved in 2017 under a capital projects penny sales tax increase is a new joint city-county government complex involving:

• 190,000-square-foot joint-administration building on the site of the former Spartanburg City Hall on West Broad Street
• An adjacent 1,000-space parking deck
• A privately developed mixed-use project wrapping the parking deck, including multifamily housing
• Project still in the design, budgeting phase

Fifth Third Park project at a glance:

An estimated $450 million mixed-use development covering several blocks in downtown Spartanburg will include:

• Fifth Third Park — a 3,500-seat minor league ballpark at 344 S. Daniel Morgan Ave.
• A 150-room hotel
• 300-350 apartments
• About 200,000 square feet of office space