31-house development coming to heart of downtown Lexington by end of the year
By this time next year, the heart of downtown Lexington will be home to up to 31 new houses as a planned development gets underway.
Sandpiper Square will be a mixed-use development off Old Chapin Road and Snelgrove Road. That’s a block north of one of Lexington’s busiest intersections at Columbia Avenue and West Main Street, behind the Shoppes at Flight Deck, which it will connect with the new development.
The development was approved by the town Planning Commission back in 2021, but developers Purty Property Company say they now plan to break ground in October, with the first units completed early next year.
When Sandpiper Square gets up and running is partly dependent on when developers can meet town of Lexington and S.C. Department of Transportation requirements to offset the impact on local roads, said Jonathan Stambolitis, Purty’s director of development.
“We’ll be making off-site improvements to Old Chapin Road, and they want us to do that at night,” Stambolitis said.
The company will be expanding the median on Old Chapin for 420 feet from near Flight Deck to past Snelgrove, Stambolitis said, along with moving light poles along the roadside.
“Everything the town’s asked us to do, we should have done by early February,” he said.
The traffic impact on the new development was top of mind when Purty and Montgomery Construction were planning out Sandpiper.
“Connectivity is a huge factor,” Stambolitis said. “That’s why we designed it the way we did. We hope it sets the tone for future developments... We know how to utilize land well. As a millennial, we have a very different approach than Lexington County has seen, so that we don’t spread out and put a big impact on the infrastructure.”
The townhome-style development is projected to take up a little more than two acres. The site was approved as a mixed-use development, but the development will mostly be residential housing, with only two to four small commercial properties on the site to keep parking and traffic in check. The two commercial properties currently planned will feature ground-floor business space with two-story apartments above. Stambolitis said he already plans to live in one of them.
The target buyers for Sandpiper are “young families and empty nesters” who want a walkable urban feel to the neighborhood, but some properties may be short-term rentals, which Stambolitis said have a favorable environment in the area.
The company plans a phased opening with eight units becoming available every four months, beginning four months after the planned groundbreaking.
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