 SC, Guignards unveiling plan to reinvent downtown
Condos, retail would ring park, campus
By JAMES T. HAMMOND and C. GRANT JACKSON
USC today will unveil a sweeping plan for its research campus and 500 acres of the city center that includes a major new riverfront park and 3,000 new households that school planners hope will attract researchers and students seeking an urban lifestyle.
The densely built, walkable downtown will have as its crown jewel a riverfront park — the largest in the city — with two footpaths, a marsh with boardwalks, a grassy amphitheater and, near the Congaree River, the reflooded southern tip of the Columbia Canal.
USC’s partners in the venture are members of Columbia’s Guignard family, which owns more than 100 acres of undeveloped riverfront land between Gervais and Catawba streets.
Condominiums, town houses and retail storefronts would ring the Innovista research campus just west of Assembly Street, as well as the park, between Huger Street and the river.
The research campus would connect with the riverfront property through a new university main street: a tree-lined Greene Street stretching from USC’s Horseshoe to the river and featuring a new public sculpture garden.
The plan is “a once-in-a-century opportunity to transform a midtier city into a world-class destination,” said USC trustee William Hubbard. “It’s ambitious, but we can do it if we all pull together.”
The estimated cost to fully develop the new roads and other infrastructure is $105.6 million, including $63.4 million for the waterfront park alone.
No funding source has been lined up yet, but the possibilities include federal and state grants, private gifts and local taxpayer support. Sasaki Associates Inc. of Boston, which designed the plan, said for example that a 15-year extension of the special tax district in the Congaree Vista would produce an estimated $69 million.
Other than the infrastructure, the rest of the plan is heavily dependent on nearby landowners, as USC and the Guignards own only about one-third of the 500 acres involved. Much of the land, however, either is undeveloped or underutilized. The plan would have no force of law unless the city decided to incorporate all or part of its features into Columbia’s zoning laws.
Mayor Bob Coble described the plan as “transformational” for Columbia and USC.
“All the dreams we’ve had for Columbia and the university are coming together in this plan,” Coble said. “I believe Columbia’s moment has arrived for great things to happen.”
Regarding the financing of the $105 million plan, he said, “it is only doable with everyone — federal, state and local governments and private participants — pulling together. No one entity can make this happen.”
The project is expected in its first 15 years to create an economic impact of $875 million in private market revenue, 8,700 jobs and $17.7 million in annual property taxes.
USC hired Sasaki to propose the plan, and the Guignard family |
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