Covid-minded apartments with home offices planned for historic Vista buildings
Scott Garvin, the architect — literally — of some of downtown Columbia’s most ambitious historic preservation projects, is planning to transform two century-old buildings in the heart of the Vista into apartments.
And the kicker is that the buildings will also have separate office spaces that can be rented by the tenants or others.
“Everybody is reinventing how they work from home,” said Garvin, president of Garvin Design Group. “And there’s a huge need in the Vista for permanent residents, not just students. . . . So these will be designed as apartments. But on the main floor they will also be designed as small offices.”
The twin, three-story buildings, located at 1209 and 1211 Gadsden St. between Gervais and Lady streets — behind Jimmy Johns — will be called Gadsden Place. The buildings will be subdivided into twelve large live-work units.
The distinctive Italianate buildings, built in 1920, hosted various tenants through the years including a bottling and fountain drink supply company known as WC Peeler and auto supply company BW Clark.
Garvin said the plans call for bricked-up windows and doors to be re-opened, and light wells installed to brighten the basement. Second floor apartments will have rooftop decks with spiral staircases.
“It’s an added bonus that we can (build the new COVID-minded apartments) in a way that reuses two of the Vista’s historic buildings,“ Garvin said.
Garvin’s firm has been the force behind some of the city’s most prominent and challenging preservation projects, including:
▪ Olympia & Granby Mills, which now host apartments popular among University of South Carolina students.
▪ 701 Whaley, the former mill village community center that is now one of downtown’s most popular event venues.
▪ Palmetto Compress Warehouse, also now apartments popular with students.
▪ The AIS Building on Gervais Street that houses a Starbucks.
▪ City Market on Gervais, which hosts apartments as well as Grill Marks restaurant and Twisted Spur brewery.
▪ And the former Hennessey’s building at 1649 Main St. that now is home to Hendrix restaurant and The Woody dance club.
Garvin said he was inspired to renovate as well as design new buildings by his grandmother, who was a “staunch preservationist” in Aiken.
“She said designing new buildings is awesome, but old buildings have a story to tell,” Garvin said. “There’s just something about taking an older building, learning about its history and bringing it back to life.”
This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 5:00 AM.