After spending $8 million, Richland council kills divisive 'Renaissance' plan

A controversial, sweeping development plan expected to cost more than $140 million was scrapped by a divided and agitated Richland County Council on Thursday.

The county already has spent more than $8 million buying properties for different portions of the now-stalled Richland Renaissance plan, including three anchor stores at Columbia Place Mall. It's uncertain what will happen to them now.

Richland Renaissance was supposed to include new county administrative offices at Columbia Place Mall, a new downtown courthouse complex, a transportation hub and business incubator in the St. Andrews area, a hospital and aquatics center in Lower Richland and a countywide historic trail, among other elements.

It was the transportation hub and business incubator that apparently drew the whole plan to a halt Thursday, as council members argued over whether to purchase a piece of property for $2.9 million near Dutch Square Mall off Bush River Road.

The business incubator and transportation hub had not been properly vetted and might not be necessary or appropriate in that location, Councilman Paul Livingston said.

“I was not convinced that was the best use of taxpayers’ dollars to put that type of facility in that particular location without researching the information before,” Livingston said.

When it became clear that a majority of council would reject buying the Dutch Square property, Council Chairwoman Joyce Dickerson took an all-or-nothing stance.

“In my humble opinion, that piece is part of the Renaissance,” Dickerson said. If that element isn’t “a part of the Renaissance, then we need to look at all the rest of the Renaissance, because we haven’t had input on the courthouse and none of those other pieces. So if that’s the case, then we need to kill the Renaissance and start all over ... because if you’re going to kill one part, you might as well kill the whole thing.”

Council members voted 7-4 to “defer” the Renaissance plan and start from scratch. In favor of halting Renaissance were Dickerson, Norman Jackson, Gwen Kennedy, Bill Malinowski, Jim Manning, Greg Pearce and Seth Rose. Voting against halting Renaissance were Livingston, Chip Jackson, Yvonne McBride and Dalhi Myers.

"This is ridiculous," McBride said immediately after the vote.

"It is ridiculous," Myers added.

What happens next — whether any parts of the Renaissance plan will move forward, what happens with the already purchased properties at Columbia Place Mall and elsewhere, what is the status of a new courthouse to replace the county’s outdated building on Main Street — appears uncertain.

“I don’t know,” Dickerson told The State after the meeting. “As far as I’m concerned, everything will stay just like it is. I don’t see any changes.”

“There’s no way I’m going to support a judicial center and a center over at Columbia Place Mall without having the whole county included,” Dickerson added. She said she won’t support a plan that would “cut out pieces of the county and promote other parts.”

The Dutch Square-area property was located just outside her district.

The Richland Renaissance plan was largely orchestrated by recently fired county administrator Gerald Seals.

Renaissance has divided council members since December, when it was first publicly introduced — although with little detail given to the public. A slim majority of council voted to move forward with the concept at the time.

Critics of the plan expressed concerns about its sweeping nature, the potential costs and a lack of transparency in the planning process.

Seals estimated the cost for all the countywide elements of Renaissance, including the renovation of Columbia Place Mall and construction of a new judicial center, at around $144 million. Some council members said they believed the cost would be much more and would burden the county.

Seals, however, said before his departure that the Renaissance plan could be financed without raising county taxes by using millions in unspent bond revenues and money from the sale of some county properties.

This story was originally published May 24, 2018 at 8:39 PM with the headline "After spending $8 million, Richland council kills divisive 'Renaissance' plan."