Huger Street’s moment has arrived. Why this Columbia spot is prime for a development boom — finally
Two empty lots, relics of the recent industrial past, carve a hole into Columbia’s Huger Street.
The land is prime real estate, with its front facing one the busiest streets in town and its back to the S.C. State Museum and then the Congaree River. Attempts have been made to create something from the properties that once hosted Kline Iron and Steel and the SCANA bus garage next door.
When the bus garage came down in 2008, local economic development heads thought it would be a real opportunity.
“I could easily see $300 million in development there — $150 million on each of those sites,” said at the time Fred Delk, executive director of the Columbia Development Corp.
It’s been 15 years and as of today, the lots remain empty. But now two separate housing projects have been proposed for each site and so far those projects are moving ahead, city leaders say. At the same time, development elsewhere on Huger Street is booming, and recent infrastructure projects could have the corridor ripe for more.
It seems that Huger Street’s moment has finally arrived.
Momentum on Huger
America’s radio towers were once built right here in Columbia at a plant on Huger Street. Kline Iron and Steel was an anchor in Columbia for almost a century, building antennas and towers of all sorts from 1923 to 2004, when the plant closed for good just four years after merging with another company.
The site at the corner of Huger and Gervais streets has been vacant since. A few projects have been proposed and then fallen away, including a 2015 plan for 350 apartments and two new parking garages.
But now, Ohio-based Silver Hills Development is moving quickly on a 250-unit apartment complex geared away from college students that will sit on a portion of the former Kline site. The apartments cleared Columbia’s Design/Development Review Commission in November.
It’s a similar story next door at the former SCANA bus garage site at 1409 Huger St. Vacant since 2008, ideas for the land’s reuse haven’t gotten far, such as in 2016 when developers wanted to build apartments and a grocery store on the site.
Could this time be different? Richland County this summer approved a 15-year, 50% tax break for a project to build a $100 million multifamily project complete with a parking garage.
“The ingredients and the temperature are kind of right, right now,” said Ryan Coleman, Columbia’s economic development director.
One new component this time includes plans to extend a vital connector street near the river, connecting Williams Street from Blossom to Senate streets. The project will allow more development west, which city leaders say will allow the city to finally grow around the Congaree riverfront.
The project has help from a $9 million earmark from the state and a land donation from the Guignard family, which has controlled the bulk of the downtown riverfront properties for most of Columbia’s history. (John Guignard laid out Columbia’s original street grid.)
“You’ve got to have the infrastructure in there to even begin,” Coleman said.
People are excited to build closer to the river, Coleman said, pointing to the variety of recent and upcoming developments near and along Huger Street.
A 960-bed student apartment complex is planned for the corner of Huger and Blossom streets. Named “Verve Columbia,” the $90 million project includes a 500-car parking garage and potentially a dog park.
A new Homewood Suites and Tru Hotel is under construction on the corner of Huger and Gervais streets, behind the McDonald’s.
The S.C. State Credit Union has completed its new headquarters on Huger and Greene streets. And in December 2022, Richland County finished the Greene Street bridge, which connected Greene Street from Huger to Five Points.
“This was all intentional, and it was something that was conceptualized 15 years ago,” Coleman said, adding that the varied infrastructure improvements will help tee up more opportunities for Huger Street.
Death Row to development bonanza
Once, Huger Street had little more than a parking lot and a prison. Pee Wee Gaskins, South Carolina’s best-known killer, took his final victim at the Central Correctional Institution, where the Canalside apartments now stand.
The prison was notorious for stabbings and vile conditions — and, yes, because Gaskins killed a fellow inmate there in 1982 by planting a bomb in his belongings. The prison finally closed in 1994.
Today, the sweeping Canalside apartment complex stands in the prison’s place. The Canalside project didn’t truly begin until 2006, but the city already had residential development in mind when it purchased the prison site for $3.2 million in 1994 and spent even more demolishing the building.
“There’s no way you could develop the riverfront or anything else around there if you had a maximum security prison there,” said former Columbia Mayor Bob Coble.
Coble, who won five terms as Columbia’s mayor, helmed the city during the controversial redevelopment of the Central Correctional Institution into Canalside. Developer The Beach Co. invested more than $100 million into that project, according to previous reporting.
It took more than two decades to fulfill the promise of Canalside. The city purchased the land in 1994, and the project’s final phase finished construction in 2018.
Columbia spent nearly $7 million on buying the prison property from the state and demolishing the building and another $4.5 million to build the Esplanade public park overlooking the Columbia Canal.
Canalside is often looked to as a precursor or blueprint for the major redevelopment of the BullStreet District. But canalside also catalyzed movement in the Huger Street corridor, Coble said.
Many residents opposed the city’s purchase of the prison land, and not everyone believed in the dream for residential options by the river. People questioned if anyone would want to live downtown, Coble said.
“The question now is do we have enough housing for people? I don’t think anybody would argue about whether (housing) would be successful. They might argue about the design or the impact on traffic and stuff like that, but it’s a whole new world today,” Coble said.
He looks to Canalside and the 2004 redevelopment of the Confederate printing plant into the Publix grocery store on Lady Street as the drivers of a lot of growth in the corridor.
“I don’t look at it just as an individual thing because I think you would miss it,” Coble said, explaining that he doesn’t look just at Huger Street or Main Street or any single part of downtown, but when he takes it in as a whole, he sees the dramatic transformation.
But what about the traffic?
Carolyn Leedecker has lived in her City Club condo near the Gervais Street bridge, across from the Edventure Children’s Museum, for about six years. She’s used to traffic problems, but in the last few years the amount of traffic has made it hard for her and her neighbors to leave their homes.
“There are times of the day that most of my neighbors will not even try to make a left turn off of Gist to go up to West Columbia,” Leedecker said. “At times they won’t even make a right turn because the traffic is so backed up, they just have to sit there and wait ... and hope that somebody that’s sitting on the bridge will let them into the traffic.”
Leedecker is president of the City Club home owners association, as well as of The Vista Neighborhood Guild, which is a small group not associated with the Congaree Vista merchants guild.
Leedecker and her neighbors have been frequent faces at city planning and design meetings. They tried to oppose the new hotel at Gervais and Huger streets but were not successful.
When she learned about plans for the hotel, Leedecker was excited. She thought a boutique hotel with a restaurant would be great for guests. Then the plans were announced for what she calls “a seven-story interstate hotel.”
Mostly, she’s worried about the traffic and the quality of life in her neighborhood. She knew there would be development around her when she and her husband bought the condo, but she doesn’t think the city or state are considering residents who already live in the Huger corridor.
She and her neighbors have lobbied for a traffic study on Huger Street, though the state Department of Transportation confirmed it is not working on a study at the moment.
Leedecker said she worries how much worse traffic will get with the addition of 1,000+ new apartments.
“I don’t even want to think about the gridlock that’s going to happen,” Leedecker said.
The portion of Huger Street between Gervais Street and the Interstate 126 interchange is the second-busiest road in downtown Columbia. It recorded an annual average daily traffic count of 38,300 in 2022 — surpassed only by Elmwood Avenue, which recorded figures nearing an average of 50,000 vehicles per day.
Leedecker said she isn’t opposed to development, and she even expected it when she and her husband purchased their condo six years ago. But she said she doesn’t think the city is planning for the influx of people the new development will bring. Eventually, that will lead to a lower quality of life, she said.
Moving to the river
Political candidates call it a missed opportunity. City leaders promise now is the time to get it done. Nonprofits are waiting with bated breath to expand greenways and bike trails. Everyone seems to know Columbia’s riverfront needs attention.
“The biggest opportunity in Columbia has always been to get to the riverfront and really create that destination piece that’s going to connect the downtown and the public with one of our greatest natural assets,” Coleman said.
Development on Huger Street will naturally lead to more density near the river, and eventually, actual riverfront access.
Coleman said he is in frequent talks with developers who are excited about the potential for riverfront development. When Williams Street is done, that will be one less obstacle for construction, he said. But with high interest rates, Coleman said developers are waiting before starting new work.
“People are interested, but they’re also just very upfront about the fact that (they) might not jump in and get engaged immediately,” Coleman said.
Developing a city is a slow process, but now, there is new momentum.
