Nearly 1K state employees slated to move from Bull St. need new plan after deal falls apart
Nearly 1,000 state employees who were slated to move away from Bull Street will have to wait to learn of their new workplace, as a previous deal has fallen through.
State budget writers planned to move the roughly 975 employees of the new Department of Environmental Services from the Bull Street corridor in downtown Columbia to 1200 Colonial Life Blvd., a building owned by the Unum Group, the parent company of the Colonial Life and Accident Insurance Company.
But two days after a panel of budget writers who serve on the Joint Bond Review Committee approved the move to 1200 Colonial Life Blvd., representatives for the building told the Department of Administration the 191,730 square feet of office space was not available as previously thought.
The space is currently rented by another tenant who has a lease until 2029, and Unum could not come to an agreement for the tenant leave.
When negotiating with Unum, which was negotiating through real estate firms Cushman & Wakeman and Colliers International, Department of Administration officials say they were not told about any availability issues with the property.
Unum said it told state officials about the possibilities related to the property.
“Unum negotiated in good faith and with full disclosure of the contingencies related to reaching a formal agreement with the current tenant of 1200 Colonial Life Blvd. about available space,” Unum said in a statement to The State newspaper. “Unfortunately, such an agreement was never reached. While the timing of the availability of our space did not align, Unum remains a committed business partner here in South Carolina.”
Unum’s real estate representatives promoted the property and listed areas of concerns to discuss when it came to a lease, but never mentioned the availability issue, Department of Administration officials said.
“Throughout this negotiation process, there was no mention of a contingency related to the release of space currently under lease and no such contingency was included in the mutually agreed upon lease,” Department of Administration Executive Director Marcia Adams wrote to the JBRC. “Had there been any indication that the space was not available because the recapture was as at a standstill, Admin would not have included the proposed lease in our report to the JBRC or in our presentation to JBRC on Nov. 14.”
For now, the Department of Administration has to find a new location to move Department of Environmental Services employees, as it also looks for a new location for employees at the state Department of Social Services, who also are currently located along the Bull Street corridor.
Making the moves is meant to help with state employee recruitment, as it’s difficult to find people to work in the current facilities on Bull Street, which need upgrades. The current buildings range from 32 years old to 195 years old.
Talk of relocating these state offices was spawned some time back as state leaders debated splitting the Department of Health and Environmental Control into two agencies, which was approved this year.
Health-related agencies are slated to move to 400 Otarre Parkway in Cayce, as the state would create one campus for the newly formed Department of Public Health, the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, and the Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services.
