A decade of USC land buys on South Main: How a downtown block took shape

For downtown workers, State House staffers and University of South Carolina students who walk the South Main corridor, the 800 block of Main Street has spent the past decade in slow-motion transition. What was once a cluster of independent storefronts is now largely a university-controlled tract awaiting redevelopment — the product of a patient, methodical acquisition strategy by USC’s private real estate arm.

Here’s how the block came together, one deal at a time.

2015: Save Our Horseshoe

The story really starts a year before the first purchase, when Memphis-based developer EdR proposed a 15-story student apartment tower called Icon on Main. The 704-bed project would have sat on the 1.26-acre site then occupied by Sandy’s Famous Hot Dogs and the Baptist Collegiate Ministry, one block west of the historic Horseshoe.

The USC Alumni Association launched a petition and social media campaign, arguing the tower would cast “a nasty shadow” on the historic Horseshoe. EdR disputed the shadow study, but the campaign helped shut down the project.

The episode set the stage for what would follow: the university preferred to control what got built near its historic core rather than react to outside developers.

November 2016: The bookstore purchase

The USC Development Foundation’s first move on the block came in November 2016, when it paid $1.1 million for a quarter-acre plot at Main and Greene streets — home to the South Carolina Bookstore, a Gamecock-gear fixture since 1961.

Then-foundation director Russ Meekins called it a “defensive” buy.

“If you go to some campuses around the country, you’ll see convenience stores with Budweiser and Newport signs over the windows and all that stuff,” Meekins told The State at the time. “We want healthy, wholesome options for the university’s students and to foster that type of atmosphere around campus.”

The bookstore was allowed to keep operating on its existing lease.

December 2016: Sandy’s Famous Hot Dogs says goodbye

Weeks later, the foundation went under contract on the Sandy’s parcel at the southwest corner of Main and College — the same location EdR had eyed for its tower. The price: $1.5 million.

Sandy’s Famous Hot Dogs had been feeding hungry students since 1989. Owner Bud Sanderson had spent significant money on a renovation earlier that year and told The State he planned to stay. Instead, the restaurant closed in January 2017.

“I hate to see them go,” Meekins said at the time, “but parking is desperately needed around the university, so in the short term there will be parking on that lot.”

2018: Domino’s moves in

The Sandy’s building sat until fall 2018, when it was remodeled for a Domino’s Pizza relocating from Devine Street.

To some observers, a chain pizza restaurant looked like an odd fit for a block the city and USC were preparing to reimagine.

Fred Delk, then executive director of the Columbia Development Corp., called it a “placeholder.”

“There are better things that can happen there,” Delk said. “But a use like that is something that can be replaced if somebody comes in with a $40 million project.”

2019-2020: The bookstore comes down

The South Carolina Bookstore closed permanently Aug. 1, 2019, after 58 years serving generations of students hunting for Gamecock gear and textbooks. About a year later, the 1930 building was demolished.

“The building has been vacant for about one year and has extensive water leakage issues, so the Foundation concluded it was best to demolish the building,” USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said at the time. The lot became parking.

2023: Streetscape plans finally move

For years, alumni wondered when the “ugly” South Main corridor would actually change.

A streetscape plan that would reduce Main Street from five lanes to two between Pendleton and Blossom streets, widen sidewalks, add bike lanes and install green space had been in the works since at least 2017, but was repeatedly stalled by rising construction costs.

In 2023, the $25 million project finally got underway.

“That segment of Main Street has not seen the quality of development that you see on other urban streets,” Gruner said.

The hope, he said, was to eventually replace street-facing parking lots with five- to six-story buildings holding retail, restaurants and offices.

Summer 2025: Streetscape complete

The $25 million streetscape overhaul wrapped up in summer 2025, converting the corridor into a more walkable, two-lane stretch with bike lanes and green space — the physical transformation many residents had watched for years finally in place.

2026: The Baptist swap

Then came the piece that had eluded the USC Development Foundation for years. The Baptist Collegiate Ministry at 819 Main sat squarely in the middle of the block, surrounded by university-controlled land. The South Carolina Baptist Convention said it wasn’t for sale.

This summer, that changed. Under a deal reached within the past two months, the foundation will transfer the corner parcel at College and Main — the old Domino’s and Sandy’s site — to the Baptists in exchange for their midblock property.

The Baptists plan to demolish the vacant Domino’s building and construct a three-story mixed-use building with offices, apartments, a rooftop patio and parking. Target completion: June 2027.

R. Jason Caskey, the foundation’s current president and CEO, declined to disclose how much the foundation agreed to pay the Baptists for their property, but said the group would use the proceeds of the sale for its demolition and construction costs.

What comes next

USC hasn’t finalized plans for its now-contiguous stretch, but officials have laid out their vision for a “town and gown” district with ground-floor retail and market-rate housing above it. One preliminary idea would move services from the Russell House, including the campus bookstore and spirit shop, to the 800 block of South Main.

“Final decisions on what could go there are a ways away,” Stensland said, “but securing that property will make it possible to do a substantial project that benefits students and the greater community.”

This story was originally published July 17, 2026 at 5:00 AM.