$500M Spartanburg Stadium Development Shows Project Core Grand Plan

(Reprinted with permission from the Upstate Business Journal: Cover Story by Jay King, February 2025)

It’s not often you get to watch in real time the opening moves in a community’s transformation, but looking at the major developments taking place in downtown Spartanburg offers just such an unfolding drama.

While there are a number of notable projects underway or in the works, the one that seems to represent all the factors at play and that captures the building excitement of what’s to come is centered on construction of the Hub City’s new baseball stadium.

Fifth Third Park is set to open in April. While it is significant in and of itself for bringing baseball “back to the ’Burg,” its true importance rests in the larger vision it represents and the collaboration at work trying to bring that vision to life.

 

Project Core

Part of the vision for Fifth Third Park is reflected in the name for the project in which it plays a central role: Project Core.

Spearheaded by Spartanburg’s own The Johnson Group, Project Core has a number of elements designed to work in concert as a nucleus around which other downtown development projects can cluster and gain momentum, according to Johnson Group CEO Geordy Johnson.

Soon to be home of the Hub City Spartanburgers, a minor league affiliate of the Texas Rangers, the 3,600-seat Fifth Third Park is the centerpiece of the project.

Aside from the stadium, the project includes:

• Two new office buildings totaling 240,000 square feet, supporting about 1,200 workers
• A 152-room hotel with a ground-level restaurant, rooftop bar and 6,000 square feet of meeting space driving 40,000-plus room nights of occupancy annually
• 180 units of multifamily housing supporting a projected 300 residents
• More than 1 acre of public plaza with green space adjacent to the ballpark
• Additional parking

Johnson said the aim is to make the new stadium and its attendant mixed-use components a central hub for a revived downtown — in effect, Spartanburg’s “front porch.”

Altogether, Project Core represents more than $500 million in private capital investment within a footprint of about three city blocks.

While the project itself is significant, Johnson said it — and the hopes for downtown it seeks to advance — would not have been possible without the involvement of a wide range of partners working toward a common goal.

 

The Players

Bringing baseball back to Spartanburg was a considered and deliberate choice, Johnson said.

“I think you’ve seen professional sports used as a place to anchor community, bring community together,” he said.

Toward that end, Johnson and his team at The Johnson Group wanted the right partner to bring professional baseball back to the Hub City. That partner needed to not only ensure baseball gave the community a team to rally around but also ensure the stadium serving that team would be fully utilized.

Diamond Baseball Holdings was chosen to be that partner, Johnson said, because of its record in other markets bringing baseball to communities while maximizing the impact of a venue the other 300 or so days of the year.

Sharing that commitment was also an important consideration in selecting the partner securing the stadium’s inaugural naming rights. Enter Ohio-based Fifth Third Bank.

According to CEO Tim Spence, one of the bank’s guiding principles is strong banks need strong communities in order to thrive.

Spence said he has seen the impact of minor league baseball in other cities and having the chance to be involved with that opportunity in Spartanburg is exciting.

“I think minor league ball is the best family ticket,” he said. “The stadiums themselves are more human scale. They’re not overwhelming to a kid.”

 

The Playbook

Creating opportunities for the people of Spartanburg to enjoy baseball and the other offerings the stadium will make possible is what Project Core is all about, Johnson said.

What increases the chances those opportunities will be realized is the fact the project is part of a much larger strategy on the part of public and private leaders to revitalize Spartanburg’s downtown. Through that effort, they hope to improve the lives of all county residents.

Success is also more likely because virtually everyone in Spartanburg has “skin in the game,” including visitors, according to Mayor Jerome Rice.

He said the capital projects penny sales tax approved by county residents, and funded by both residents and visitors alike, has enabled significant public investments in the city’s downtown.

The close working relationship between the county and the city in deciding where those projects would be located is a crucial element driving revitalization efforts, Rice said.

Capital projects sales tax funding paid for several new public buildings, including an impressive new Spartanburg County Courthouse on Magnolia Street.

Perhaps the most significant project — and one that will dovetail with Project Core — is a planned joint city-county administrative complex just a block away from Fifth Third Park.

The goal for this investment of public dollars is the same as that of the private investment of Project Core — to bring people downtown.

Johnson, Rice and Spence described the calculus in similar terms: More people spending time downtown means more customers for shops and restaurants. Busy shops and restaurants encourage other businesses to come downtown, creating more offerings to draw people to the beating urban heart of Spartanburg County.

 

The Promise

Creating a vibrant, engaging downtown is good for the whole county, including its other municipalities, according to Katherine O’Neill, chief economic development officer for OneSpartanburg. The organization carries a combined responsibility for business, economic and tourism development in the county.

Keystone developments like Project Core, which require close collaboration between public and private partners, demonstrate the kind of environment a community provides for residents and businesses, O’Neill said.

She explained that in the post-pandemic world where people from all over the country are moving to the Southeast, the choices of where they end up are abundant. Two of the main factors driving Spartanburg’s rise as one of the fastest growing cities in the country are its quality of life and its ongoing investment in creating an enticing downtown, she said.

The collaboration underpinning the projects transforming the Hub City is more than just a slogan, she said. Thanks to public investment from the city and county and private investment from hometown companies like The Johnson Group, companies and people looking to move here get one resounding promise: Spartanburg is a community that believes in itself and is investing in its future growth and prosperity.

 

The Point of Project Core

As important as all the economic factors are in driving downtown development, the city’s mayor said they are all in service to making people’s lives better.

“It’s all about the people here in Spartanburg,” Rice said.

He said that’s why baseball and the location of the stadium in which it will be played are so significant.

“This could be anywhere in the United States, but Johnson Development decided to do something at home here in Spartanburg,” he said. “(The stadium is) right there in central Spartanburg where just less than a block away, we have a neighborhood of kids that otherwise may not ever see a professional baseball game.”

For Johnson, the people factor of bringing baseball back to Spartanburg is personally significant.

“I think sports just have an ability to bring people together from different backgrounds and demographics,” he said. “Securing a (Minor League Baseball) … team signal’s Spartanburg’s strong momentum to individuals and investors that may want to move their homes or capital to our community.”

He wants new generations of young people to have the sorts of experiences he remembers having with his family attending Spartanburg Phillies games in the early 1990s.

“That was a magical piece of my childhood,” he said.

He said it has been exciting to see the passion people have expressed since the stadium’s groundbreaking and hopes that enthusiasm will grow as Project Core takes shape.

The mayor seemed to capture his city’s attitude succinctly.

“I’m optimistic and I’m excited,” Rice said.

 

Spartanburg Baseball Fast Facts:

• Hub City Spartanburgers — Minor League Baseball affiliate of Texas Rangers
• Diamond Baseball Holdings — Purchased Down East Wood Ducks of Kinston, North Carolina, in 2023 to become Hub City Spartanburgers; owns more than 40 Minor League Baseball teams, including the Augusta Greenjackets and Charlotte Knights
• Fifth Third Park — 3,600-seat home stadium of the Spartanburgers set to open for the season in April 2025

 

Good to Know

The Johnson Group is a family of companies headquartered in Spartanburg and includes:

• Johnson Development Associates Inc. — develops multifamily residential, industrial and storage properties across the country
• OTO Development — develops and manages hospitality properties
• American Credit Acceptance — provides lending services to customers with emerging credit