Three hotels, 195 apartments now pitched for convention center expansion
A proposal to enlarge by four times the exhibition space at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center has just gotten more serious.
Developer Ben Arnold has upped the ante with a proposed third hotel and 195 apartments to be connected to the proposed expansion project.
The hotels — two Hiltons and a Hyatt — combine for 675 rooms. All would be full service, which backers of the expansion say are needed to attract bigger conventions.
Presently, groups have to be broken up into smaller, limited-service hotels — a less desirable arrangement for meeting planners, said Bill Ellen, president and CEO of the Midlands Authority for Conventions, Sports and Tourism , known as Experience Columbia.
Also, he said, some groups have to be turned away because of the center’s limited exhibition space, which at 25,000 square feet is smaller than a similar center in Florence.
“There are meeting planners signing right now for 2022 and 2023,” he said. “The longer we wait the more those contracts are going to be signed for different destinations.”
Arnold last year announced plans for an 11-story, 158-room full-service boutique hotel for the Vista.
The Hilton Tapestry hotel, named Anthem, would be built at 700 Gervais St. Arnold already has a complex there that houses Tsunami restaurant and the former Jillian’s entertainment complex.
The 4-star hotel would be built behind the Jillian’s building, called The Depot, and have pedestrian plazas and walkways that would connect it to the convention center expansion.
Also, Arnold is pitching a 387-room Hyatt Regency hotel that would be directly connected to the expansion, which would quadruple the center’s exhibition space to 100,000 square feet.
The 4.5-star hotel would be the city’s largest.
Now, Arnold has added a third hotel — a 130-room, 3.5-star hotel under the new Hilton Tempo flag. It, too, would be connected to the convention center via a plaza and walkways.
“They are all at different price points,” he said.
All three hotels and the apartments would be clustered on a 12-acre tract behind Arnold’s entertainment complex, which would be reconfigured, he said.
The Anthem hotel is presumably a go. It has passed all the bureaucratic hurdles except one — the City Design/Development Review Commission is now debating the hotel’s signage, which includes a large, Hard Rock Cafe-type guitar.
But Arnold said the other two hotels, and possibly the whole district, hinge on whether the city of Columbia and Richland County agree to fund the $60 million convention center expansion.
“It’s billions of dollars of impact,” he said. “It would be great for both the city and the state. But I’m not going to build this without the convention center expanding.”
Mayor Steve Benjamin has supported expansion. He said Columbia is gaining traction among meeting planners, but as a result, is losing more conventions and meetings because the convention center is too small.
“I believe this expansion can be done,” he said. “This should be a priority. We have to find ways to harness this growth in the Vista.”
Ellen said the expansion plan and Arnold’s new district have been presented privately to citizens and business groups such as the Vista Guild, and have been met positively. It has yet to be presented formally to Columbia and Richland County, due to continuing inquiries by city and county staff and representatives.
“They have questions,” he said.
This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 4:31 PM.