Retailers surge to Garners Ferry Road area’s purchasing power

The Garners Ferry Road corridor, an eastern gateway into the Capital City, is speedily becoming the latest commercial thoroughfare.

The stretch of highway from Beltline Boulevard to Interstate 77 has at least a dozen new or updated businesses just in recent months. Garners Ferry has become one leg of what a commercial real estate broker called The Golden Triangle that connects Forest Drive, Garners Ferry and the interstate.

Businesses coming to the Columbia area have sought locations in Harbison, the Northeast and perhaps in Lexington County, said Ansel Bunch, CBRE Columbia commercial broker. “Now they’re saying, ‘We also need to be in the Golden Triangle.’ I think the retailers are sort of just now discovering that part of town as a trade area.”

The eastern corridor for years has been stacked with commuter roads, several middle- to higher-income neighborhoods, an interstate that completes a beltway around Columbia, and Fort Jackson. But the district may never have been as hot as it is now, expert say.

“I think having Whole Foods and the tenants that are proposed for Rosewood (Crossing) justified that market for other tenants that are looking at Columbia,” Bunch said.

The rejuvenation of Garners Ferry Road is fueled by new retailers such as Marshall’s and Ross Dress for Less, national clothiers that are sweeping into Rosewood Crossing (formerly a Kmart) and into Landmark Square Shopping Center, respectively.

Others on tap to open this summer or fall are:

▪  Kay Jewelers at Rosewood Crossing

▪  Bottles, a high-end wine and liquor store, at Rosewood Crossing

▪  PetSmart at Rosewood Crossing

▪  Burke’s Outlet at Landmark Square

▪  Midwood Smokehouse at Rosewood Crossing

A Hallmark Self Storage is to open in February at I-77.

Rosewood Crossing a lure

Kay Jewelers, which is expected to open within 60 days, said developer Matt Sasser, who develops project for Atlanta’s Bright-Meyers. Soul of Salons, a large Canada-based hair care company, has plans to open within 90 days, he said.

Letters of intent have been signed for the remaining space Rosewood Crossing, Sasser said, declining to name the businesses or their opening dates.

A 15,359-square-feet Bottles wine, beer and liquor store is under construction in the remodeled site that for years was home to a Kmart. Bottles is Charleston-based and focuses on wine. Sasser said it is wildly popular in Charleston and is opening just its second store in South Carolina at Rosewood Crossing.

A Michael’s arts and craft store opened in mid-July, as did a heavily refitted Jersey Mike’s Subs, Sasser said. Marshall’s and a PetSmart store are expected to open by mid-August.

As the name Rosewood Crossing implies, the plaza sits at the intersection of major roads that provide easy access. The network of roads itself probably would drive a business decision to open a shopping center, said Sasser, who is seeking to redevelop the abandoned Capital City Stadium along Assembly Street.

“The road network is phenomenal,” Sasser said. “You’ve got Rosewood, Devine, Garners Ferry, Fort Jackson and Beltline that all come together right there at one point.”

But the Rosewood Crossing location has even more going in its favor.

“That part of town seems to have changed to me,” said Sasser, who has built three Wal-Marts in the Columbia area in the past 10 years.

The Rosewood neighborhoods have more and more young families as well as homes being renovated, he said.

The Devine Street area between Five Points and Cross Hill Road, an extension of Beltline Boulevard, is experiencing the same type of growth but in an even higher income area. Disposable income was one of the reasons that attracted the first Whole Foods store to the Midlands, Sasser said.

Established businesses get facelifts

Just down Garners Ferry Road at Shoppes at Woodhill, a Target store anchors that Edens redeveloped shopping center that is stuffed with tenants and gives shoppers another reason to continue along Garners Ferry at Rosewood Drive, near where a Gamecock Bi-Lo store anchors an adjacent, renovated Applebee’s, Ruby Tuesday, Buffalo Wild Wings, Wendy’s and an updated McDonald’s.

The area has seen significant increases in vehicle traffic, particularly in the past five years, said Tige Watts, Brandon Acres/Cedar Terrace Neighborhood Association president and neighborhood activist.

“This area is ... one that has been primed for growth going back to the ’90s,” with the refurbishing of Woodhill Mall, Watts said. “I think that might have been something that piqued people’s interest and really brought the area more into focus as a prime area for expansion.”

Vacant store fronts aren’t as common anymore in the Garners Ferry Road because of neighborhood stability, with people putting down roots and raising families, Watts said. And new development has been added as vacant lots have been filled in with new homes, he said.

Another sign of a range of developments is a three-story, 85,000-square-feet Hallmark Self Storage under construction, with plans to open in February at the eastbound I-77 on ramp.

The 163,000-square-feet Landmark Square Shopping Center has been getting a major spruce-up.

Clothier Ross Dress for Less is scheduled to occupy 27,000 square feet in a building undergoing renovation at the plaza. Burkes Outlet, another clothier, is going to occupy 23,000 square feet. Both businesses are on track for fall openings, CBRE’s Bunch said. A Goodwill store is expanding at Landmark and will open with a new facade.

Rooftops the true driver

Columbia has developed studies designed to guide development in the Devine Street/Fort Jackson and Garners Ferry Road areas, aimed at improved efficiency, conservation and shared use, city officials said.

But it is raw data that has elicited the response that businesses, residents and government officials are witnessing, said John Sellers, Columbia’s planning administrator.

“I think it’s the rooftops. I think it’s the acknowledgment to those rooftops,” Seller said. “I think there’s buying power – purchasing power – in that area.”

Garners Ferry Road also carries a lot of traffic into the city from the interstate, Lower Richland and the Sumter area, he said. Drivers are headed to work at the University of South Carolina, to area hospitals or government jobs downtown. “If you think about it from a commuting perspective, on your way to or from work you can pick things up, buy things, stop at the grocery store,” Sellers said.

Having a strong anchor such as a Whole Foods was a critical factor, he said. The store attracts business from far beyond that area.

“Whole Foods is having a bigger draw regionally – that’s my understanding,” Sellers said. People are driving from the Northeast to Whole Foods and from West Columbia and Lexington to Whole Foods.

“That creates a synergy,” the city planner said. “People will shop at (other) stores nearby.”

This story was originally published August 1, 2015 at 8:38 PM.