CanalSide going up at last

After more than a decade of false starts and misfires, buildings are rising at CanalSide, the downtown neighborhood being built at the old prison site on the Columbia Canal.

The Beach Co., a venerable Charleston developer, is constructing 10 separate apartment buildings — each with distinct architecture — along newly made boulevards and streets.

The 25-acre tract, at the foot of Taylor Street, eventually will be a neighborhood of up to 750 single-family homes, town houses, condos and apartments. A range of housing at a variety of prices will bring new life to the site of the state’s former Death Row.

CanalSide and other downtown residential projects are the result of more than a decade of public spending — an experiment in jump-starting development that the city embarked upon way before the Vista was considered cool.

CanalSide is the first new mega-development to come out of the ground. It’s rising even as the housing market stumbles nationally amidst a credit crunch that is making it harder for developers and homebuyers to borrow.

But CanalSide’s advocates are unfazed.

“Twelve years ago, people didn’t believe that downtown residential development could be successful,” Mayor Bob Coble said. “But the market is here now.”

Two other mega-developments are planned for downtown:

• The Bull Street Neighborhood on the 178-acre central campus of the State Hospital. That project has been delayed because of a dispute about how money from the sale of the property should be spent. Now, the state Mental Health Department is awaiting state money for new facilities so it can move its remaining patients from the site.

• Innovista, which includes USC’s research campus, a 30-block waterfront district and a 74-acre riverfront park. The campus has been slow to attract major tenants. The $76 million park will depend on federal grants that have yet to be landed.

These and other smaller projects are intended to attract the “creative class” of researchers, entrepreneurs and others who would transform Columbia’s economy in the next decade.

The CanalSide construction fulfills a vision set by the city in 1995, when it purchased the old Central Correctional Institution from the state for $3.3 million. In addition to the purchase price, the city spent another $3.6 million clearing and marketing the site.

Developers were slow to embrace the property because of the Prison Industries Building — the only CCI structure not initially razed; it was considered historic — and tightly drawn site plans imposed by City Council.

When developers balked, the city decided to be its own developer. But when estimates of $10 million came in for a second round of site improvements in 2004 — adding water and sewer, roads, sidewalks, etc. — the city exited the development business. It tore down the Prison Industries Building and sold the property to The Beach Co. for $6 million.

“Certainly we could have done some things differently, but the fact remains that downtown is experiencing a renaissance,” Coble said. “Public spending on CanalSide as well as the Gervais Street streetscaping, the convention center and Publix were critical in making that happen. The city had to step up.”

BULLY ON COLUMBIA

The Beach Co., headed by former state commerce secretary Charlie Way, is one of South Carolina’s pre-eminent development firms. Its resume includes the Isle of Palms and Kiawah Island, the latter being the largest real estate transaction in S.C. history.

Beach Co. vice president Dan Doyle, CanalSide’s project manager, sees downtown Columbia as an untapped, stable, growing market.

Only in recent years has downtown seen new residences built in existing neighborhoods. CanalSide will be its own distinct neighborhood but connected to downtown’s bustle.

The first construction phase calls for 174 loft-style apartments.There also will be a 1,200-square-foot storefront in one of the central apartment buildings that will house a gourmet deli aimed at catering to CanalSide residents and the 1,200 AT&T employees across Williams Street.

Plans call for the apartments to be followed by 58 condos, 35 town houses and 20 single-family homes. The condos will be built in a three-building complex called Sola Station. The complex also will include 8,000 square feet of retail or office space for sale.

Later, the company could build up to 450 additional condos, mostly in two eight-story towers overlooking the canal.

The company has spent the past few months building streets and other infrastructure. It also is building a public park and a fountain. The city also will build The Esplanade, a paved promenade on the bluff overlooking the canal, as part of the Three Rivers Greenway.

Faced with a slowdown in downtown’s condo market, other developers, including Atlanta’s Holder Properties and Houston’s Dinerstein Cos., have moved from building downtown condos to apartments.

However, the Beach Co. has been pre-selling luxury condominiums:

• Three-story town homes with two-car garages, priced from the $400,000s

• Penthouse luxury condominiums with skyline views, from the $500,000s

• Loft-style condominiums from the $170,000s.

APARTMENTS FIRST

CanalSide’s Doyle wouldn’t say how many condo units have been pre-sold. But building apartments first doesn’t mean The Beach Co. is deviating from its plan, he said.

“Apartments have always been in the plan,” he said. “Right now, that’s where the significant demand is. And the apartments allow us to have long-term ownership in the project.

“It doesn’t matter where the for-sale market goes,” he added. “There will always be a market for high-quality apartments.”

Six of the buildings line Williams Street at its intersection with Taylor Street. The remainder of the buildings will be clustered on an extension of Taylor Street, built as the development’s central boulevard.

Building the units in front of the property first “lets us put our best foot forward as soon as possible,” Doyle said.

Doyle wouldn’t say what rents will be for the apartments, except to say they will reflect the downtown market.

Apartments at the renovated Granby Mill in Olympia, renovated by Philadelphia developer Ron Caplan, rent from $1,000 to $1,800 a month. Holder Properties’ John Holder announced that apartments in his 388-unit Assembly Station project at Assembly and Whaley streets will run from $1,000 to $2,000 a month.

The CanalSide apartments will have 18 different one- and two-bedroom floor plans with wooden floors, large-island kitchens, exposed ductwork and 20-foot ceilings. Many will have balconies with skyline views.

The neighborhood also will have a pool and sun deck, fitness center, conference room and direct access to the Three Rivers Greenway.

“This will become the best thing” in downtown, Doyle said.

Building the apartments will bring people to the site, Doyle said — both residents and potential buyers for the condos. “It piques their interest.”

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Fred Delk, executive director of the Columbia Development Corp., which guides development in the Vista, said CanalSide keeps up the momentum for downtown living.

When built out, it will provide an estimated 1,000 or more new residents who will be a boon to downtown businesses, he said.

“We expect them to take advantage of the Vista and the city center on a daily basis — eating out, shopping, visiting art galleries,” Delk said. “And, as people experience how cool living downtown can be, it will make other projects like this more likely.”

Reach Wilkinson at (803) 771-8495.