Identified as a “Food Desert” the Northside neighborhood, adjacent to downtown and roughly 20% of the Spartanburg’s land-mass (pop. 40k), was once home to Spartan Mills textiles (est. 1888). The neighborhood fell into decline after suburban migration and has suffered problems of high unemployment, poverty, crime and minimal access to basic services since the mid-1990’s. The mill was shuttered in 2001 and since burned. Only recently has the situation improved since the city successfully located an Osteopathy school on the original mill site and the community has focused on improving quality of life issues. A non-profit development corporation raised over $2.5 million and purchased vacant or abandoned property, Purpose Built Communities was announced as partner in the redevelopment process and a master-planer is currently involved.
While this facility has components of many other community projects around the country the HFH is unique considering all the programs it has on a single site: a new home for the Hub City Farmer’s Market and a non-profit culinary-arts program serving troubled individuals, an urban farm which requires job training for local residents provides ingredients for the culinary-arts program and produce for the small grocery store, a café features items prepared by the culinary arts program and serves 2 adjacent colleges. The HFH is seen as a catalyst for change in this troubled area.
The project, currently under construction, is site-heavy featuring open-air market structures, outdoor plaza space and parking. The building is humble and appropriately scaled for the existing urban residential vernacular, echoing small community stores of the past. While addressing the street the building also opens up to public spaces of the market adjacent to it. Although this neighborhood is poised for change it was important to develop an aesthetic that the existing community could relate to. Transformation is desired over gentrification.