What remains of Spartanburg’s nearly 200-year-old Glendale Mill will be preserved for future generations, as the mill and the more than 16 acres on which it sits was recently sold for $1.5 million to SPACE — the Spartanburg Area Conservancy.
Andrew Babb and John Bauknight, senior associates with NAI Earle Furman in Spartanburg, handled the sale, which involved funding from SPACE, Spartanburg County and the S.C. Conservation Bank.
The site on Lawson’s Fork Creek at 351 Broadway St. near Spartanburg has been home to textile manufacturing since the 1830s. The remaining iconic tower was built in 1902 and is the one defining structure that survived a 2004 fire that destroyed the mill, which shuttered in the late 1960s.
Bauknight, who also serves on the board of Upstate Forever, says seeing the property go into permanent conservation through SPACE is important as it preserves a vital piece of area history.
With the site slated to join SPACE’s existing Glendale Shoals Preserve and with plans to extend Spartanburg’s iconic Daniel Morgan rail trail system — the Dan — down Country Club Road to the site, Glendale Mill will be a powerful cultural anchor among a series of community landmarks that enhance recreation which, in turn, helps drive economic development, Bauknight says.
Babb and Bauknight say the property has been on the market for a number of years and has been the focus of a variety of redevelopment efforts. Mixed-use proposals and a multifamily housing project have at times been on the table, but permanent conservation ultimately won out.
Babb says this sale is of a fabric with the larger transformation happening in Spartanburg County where new projects and developments are happening alongside historical preservation, conservation and recreational efforts. All of those developments combine to make the area an irresistible magnet for new residents.
Bauknight agrees.
“We’re definitely on the map,” he says. “It’s a great time to be ‘in the ‘Burg,’ as we say.”
