Building Our City: North Main to get new look, new life

Columbia officials broke ground Friday on a $13 million streetscaping and utility improvement project on North Main Street that they hope will kick-start the area’s economic revival.

The project’s first phase, set to start in May, will begin at Elmwood Avenue and extend north for 10 blocks to Anthony Street.

“This is transformational for North Columbia,” Mayor Bob Coble said.

Neighborhood and city leaders say the area is lagging behind other areas in private development. The public projects are designed to attract private money.

The two years of work promises to be as invasive as the Gervais Street, Lady Street and Five Points projects that preceded it.

City officials and contractors were criticized for budget and time overruns and for causing some businesses to close. But North Main business owners said the improvements will be worth it.

“We have watched other businesses move away through the years, but we have stayed,” said Jim Moore, owner of Jim Moore Cadillac, located on North Main since 1967. “I am not looking forward to this, but I am looking forward to the progress and redevelopment that will follow it.”

Also kicking off in May is the second phase of the Main Street streetscaping in the heart of downtown. That $4.7 million project is to take six months.

That project encompasses the two blocks between Hampton and Laurel streets — as well as side projects on Hampton and Washington streets to enhance the Columbia Museum of Art and a new boutique hotel going into the Palmetto Building, the state’s first high-rise office building.

The projects are funded mostly by federal grants.

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., speaking at Friday’s ceremony, chided those in Congress who oppose “earmarks” — seemingly a dig at Republican Sen. Jim DeMint, who has championed their elimination.

“This project is a testament to why we have to be careful when we hear people complain about (earmarks),” Clyburn said without naming DeMint. “This project is an earmark. It wouldn’t be here without an earmark. There is nothing wrong with it.”

Local officials are awaiting more federal grants for a number of projects, including:

• A second North Main streetscaping phase, from Anthony Street north to Farrow Road. Cost: $40 million

• Completion of one of the two blocks between Hampton and Laurel streets, in front of City Hall, and the three blocks from there to Elmwood, where the North Main project begins. Cost: $10 million

• Extending the Five Points streetscaping up Harden Street in front Benedict College and Allen University. Cost: $30 million

• Construction of a 74-acre riverfront park that will be the centerpiece of USC’s research district, Innovista. Cost: $80 million

Eau Claire residents were somewhat chagrined that the city chose to begin the North Main project at Elmwood and move north, rather than Farrow and move south.

But Henry Hopkins, chairman of the city’s Eau Claire Development Corp., said he was happy to see the project, long in the planning stage, finally get off the ground in any form.

“We were persistent,” he said. “We wouldn’t let it die. Because this is our home.”

Sam Davis, who represents North Columbia and Eau Claire on City Council, said the city will complete the entire project as federal money becomes available. “We’re committed to making it all the way up North Main.”

Reach Wilkinson at (803) 771-8495.