The Heritage Green space

By Cindy Landrum  

FEBRUARY 3, 2011 3:39 p.m. (0)

Heritage Green is having an identity crisis.

The home of four museums, a community theater and the county’s main library is just three blocks from Main Street, yet is not widely thought of as a part of Greenville’s burgeoning downtown.

Some say that’s because of Academy Street, one of Greenville’s main central city thoroughfares that dissects Heritage Green from the rest of downtown and a more pedestrian-friendly Main Street.

Others say Heritage Green­ – the location of the Greenville County Museum of Art, Bob Jones University’s Museum & Gallery at Heritage Green, the Upcountry History Museum, the Children’s Museum of the Upstate, the Greenville Little Theatre and the Hughes Main Library of the Greenville County Library System – lacks cohesiveness within its boundaries and a distinctive identity from the outside.

“Heritage Green is a great asset for all of Greenville County,” said Greenville County Council Chairman Butch Kirven. “But it’s obscure, a little bit out of the way. It’s not connected very well to Main Street.”

That could soon change.

Work will begin on a Heritage Green master plan designed to continue to breathe new life into the cultural campus, which has doubled in attractions in less than four years.

After a decade of planning, the Upcountry History Museum opened in September 2007.

Eight months later, Bob Jones University opened its Museum & Gallery at Heritage Green in an old Coca-Cola bottling plant. The facility is a satellite facility of the university’s campus museum specializing in religious art.

The Children’s Museum of the Upstate is Heritage Green’s newest facility. It opened on July 31, 2009.

Each component of Heritage Green has its distinctive mission, audience and governing board.

“We have people who are patrons of one of the entities in Heritage Green who have not checked out the institution next door,” said Beverly James, director of the library. “We need to get the word out that it’s a cultural campus, that it’s a destination for learning, education and enrichment opportunities.”

Erin Jones, director of the Museum & Gallery, said Heritage Green doesn’t come to mind when Greenville County residents or visitors think about something to do.

“There are too many people who don’t know we’re here,” she said.

Greenville County allocated nearly $1.5 million to improvements to Heritage Green in the ordinance that created the county’s hospitality tax several years ago.

New signage inside and out is a possibility. So are new lighting and park benches.

Ideas such as a carousel, monuments of historic significance and an amphitheater have been tossed about. There’s talk of holding small-scale outdoor events on the campus or creating a cultural trail modeled after the Freedom Trail in Boston.

“You’ve got Falls Park on the Reedy River,” Kirven said. “This could be something like that on a smaller scale.”

The makeover would mesh well with the city’s focus on the northern end of Main Street, said city council member Amy Ryberg Doyle, who is also on the Children’s Museum board.

The Hyatt is getting a makeover. A face-changing development could soon be announced for the corner of Washington and Main. The city has allocated $3.5 million for Bergamo Plaza.

“Heritage Green could be a beautiful green space. It’d be a great place for programming. It could make a really nice public park,” Doyle said.

Greenville Mayor Knox White said the consultants used for its downtown streets plan will do the Heritage Green study. He expects the city to work on improving the pedestrian crossings on Academy and across Buncombe Street.

The city has already changed the timing on the traffic lights on Academy to allow pedestrians more time to cross to get to Heritage Green, Doyle said.

“Academy is a big hurdle to get over,” she said. “We need to make downtown pedestrian friendly.”

Doyle said streetscaping could help identify Heritage Green as a special place.

“We want to make it as “wow” as the things on Heritage Green,” she said.

Parking is not a huge concern for Heritage Green, although it can be a concern when the museums, library and theater have events happening simultaneously, James said. On weekends and at night, Heritage Green patrons can use the BB&T’s parking lot.

If additional parking is needed, another level could be added to the parking deck near the library.

County Councilman Fred Payne said Heritage Green can promote tourism and economic development, provide strong educational programs and improve quality of life. Part of that economic development comes from growing Greenville’s retirement community, he said.

“It makes good sense,” he said. “Awareness is a big issue. Not just awareness of the entities, but awareness of the importance of Heritage Green.”

Jones said the organizations work together on joint programming when possible to try to increase audience crossover. Many of the organizations have big events each October and there’s been talk of marketing the month “Visit Heritage Green Month.”

James said the organizations have talked about marketing and branding Heritage Green.

Jones said she sees the joint efforts increasing.

“The name Heritage Green harkens back to the village green, a gathering place,” Kirven said. “We want it to be a place people want to be.”