The Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum could move from its site opposite the Greenville Drive‘s (Low A; Sally League) Fluor Field to a nearby location, making way for a proposed luxury apartment complex.
Under a proposal from Charlotte-based Woodfield Development, a new development named .408 Jackson (a reference to Shoeless Joe’s batting average in his rookie season) would be built between Flour Field and Greenville Senior High School. The development would include a 237-unit luxury apartment complex, featuring four retail spaces. To make way for the project, the Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum would be relocated from its current address at 356 Field Street to the corner of South Markley and Field streets, where it would be served by a new public plaza that is included in the proposed development.
The proposal is set to go before the city’s Design Review Board next month, and has received an endorsement from museum officials. More from Greenville News:
In a February letter to the development firm, museum president Arlene Marcley shared the board of directors’ support for the move.
“The terms and conditions offered to us by Woodfield Development will enhance the building and grounds, and will allow for increased public traffic in support of our future plans for the museum,” Marcley wrote in the letter.
The project will go before the city’s Design Review Board on April 4.
The Shoeless Joe Jackson Museum has an interesting origin story. It sits inside the home where Jackson–a star outfielder banned from MLB as part of the fallout from the 1919 Black Sox scandal (his involvement remains a point of dispute among many)–was living at the time of his death in Greenville in 1951. The home was moved from its original Dunean Mill village location to its current site in 2006, the same year that Fluor Field opened for the Drive. The museum has operated since 2008.
Image courtesy Seamon, Whiteside & Associates via City of Greenville.