By admin 
A six-story hotel in downtown Spartanburg will be a Curio Collection by Hilton and known as the Hotel Morgan.
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It is part of a $425 million development on the city’s west side known as the Grain District and will open late next year.
The 152-room hotel is being developed and managed by OTO Development, which is part of the Johnson Group, a Spartanburg-based company that also owns office buildings and American Credit Acceptance, an automobile finance company.
The hotel, located on West Main Street, will have 6,000 square feet of flexible meeting and event space, including a ballroom, dining venues, a rooftop pool and fitness center.
The development also includes two Class A office buildings and 181 luxury apartments.
It is not far from Fifth Third Park, home of the Hub City Spartanburgers minor league baseball team, which is a $75 million, 5,250-seat stadium.
Spartanburg has seen a rash of redevelopment in recent years and last year, with Union County, was the third fastest growing metro area in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The OTO development also includes Broad Street Residential, apartments within walking district of dining, shopping, entertainment, and community gathering spaces, including Rockers Brewing, Main Street Pub, and Cribb’s Kitchen.
A four-story office building at 185 W. Main St., home to American Credit Acceptance, has ground-floor retail and dining and about 97,000 square feet of office and commercial space. There is also a fitness center.
The Grain District, a nod to Spartanburg’s past, also includes an AC Hotel.
“In the history of Spartanburg economic development announcements, it is unlikely any will ever trump the day in June 1992 when BMW announced it was going to build its first North American manufacturing facility on a sweeping piece of former farmland 4 miles southwest of Duncan, adjacent to I-85 and the airport,” the city says on its website. “That investment resuscitated what was, at the time, a comatose Spartanburg economy, and kickstarted what has turned into more than 30 years of economic growth that has put Spartanburg on the map as a 21st century industrial powerhouse.”
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Will Rothschild, the City of Spartanburg Communications Manager, wrote, “in the not-too-distant future, you will be able to park along East Main Street or in the Dunbar or Kennedy street garages, pick any one of numerous spots for lunch in that part of downtown, then walk five minutes to the planetarium. After some star-gazing, you could walk another five minutes and grab some ice cream or a beverage from one of several options. After that, perhaps a leisurely meander through the shops and boutiques that surround Morgan Square, then a pregame beer at Rockers, before heading to the ballpark in plenty of time to be in your seat for a 7 p.m. first pitch. That’s a complete downtown experience.”
The renaissance has engendered some controversy with a decision to relocate the historic Morgan Square clock tower to the entrance of the Zimmerli Amphitheater at Barnet Park.
The clock tower has been moved several times since the Seth Thomas works were installed in 1881.
The clock, which cost $966.02, was at the peak of a tower in a building that housed the town offices, post office and opera house.
That building was sold in 1906 and torn down the next year, and the clock was moved to the courthouse tower.
That courthouse was torn down in 1958 and the clock was stored for 20 years. It was resurrected in the 1970s as Spartanburg planned for its bicentennial. It was installed in its own tower designed by the Chicago architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, which also designed the Greenville Spartanburg Airport.
That was 1979 and paid for by private donations and federal community development grants.
Morgan Square was originally called Public Square and was created in 1787 as a public pasture. It was renamed when a statue of Revolutionary War hero Daniel Morgan was erected there in 1881.
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