New openings signal growth at BullStreet as district faces pandemic challenge
Two of the most anticipated developments at Columbia’s BullStreet — perhaps the biggest since the district’s hallmark minor league baseball park opened in 2016 — are coming to fruition.
Just as the new REI Co-op outdoors outfitter prepares to open its doors on Friday, residents are moving into the posh Merrill Gardens active senior living community.
They’re the clearest signs of life at BullStreet, where the coronavirus pandemic has dampened what would have been a summer full of activity, canceling the Columbia Fireflies minor league baseball season and driving many office workers to their homes.
“We had to be ready for multiple economic slowdowns. Obviously, we never could have guessed it would be a pandemic,” developer Robert Hughes said of the long-term planning for BullStreet, the 181-acre former state mental hospital campus that has been hailed as one of the largest new commercial development projects on the East Coast.
But despite the pandemic slowdown, behind-the-scenes movement at BullStreet is pushing forward, district and local leaders say, and life after coronavirus looks hopeful.
“Yes, every commercial development project and product type is thinking about ‘What does it look like on the other side of this?’” Hughes said. “But all the fundamentals stay the same. Great real estate in a great location will hold true.”
For outdoor-lovers and ‘cool old people’
With 20,000 square feet of cycling, paddling, camping, climbing, running and all manner of other outdoor clothing, shoes and supplies, the new REI Co-op store is opening Friday after more than a year of planning and several months of delays due to the pandemic.
“There’ll be people from all over Columbia, all over South Carolina coming in,” store manager Mark Sommers said. “We’ve had our eye on Columbia for quite a long time.”
Opening amid a global health and economic crisis was never part of the plan, of course. But perhaps there’s never been a more apt time to be in the business of getting people outdoors.
REI aims to appeal to everyone from the casual park walker to the avid mountain biker, Sommers said. And that’s partly why BullStreet is a good fit for the store’s mission, he said.
“We’re excited to be in BullStreet. So much of their vision for what BullStreet is going to be is that active-minded person, so there’s going to be a place to live and a place to shop and a place to be outside,” Sommers said. “I hope (REI) will be a catalyst for more to come in the area and also just more fun and excitement in Columbia as a whole.”
Wilson Anhar had planned to fill private box suites at Segra Park ballpark this summer with groups of residents — retirees living out their golden years in relative luxury at the new all-inclusive Merrill Gardens community, located a half-mile from the new REI. The pandemic, though, has put a hold on that and most activity for the public at BullStreet.
But there are about to be dozens of new residents in the district, the first to fill the 102 independent-living apartments at Merrill Gardens, along with 18 specialty memory care suites. Two residents moved in in late July, and at least two dozen more will be moving in throughout this month and next, Anhar said.
“This is where the cool old people live,” Anhar said, running through a long list of amenities at what is the only residence of its kind in downtown Columbia: finely finished in-unit kitchens, chef-prepared meals, concierge doctors and caregivers, organized group outings, a rooftop patio. “They call it the golden years for a reason, right?”
All across the city, life is a little slower than normal right now, but Anhar envisions his Merrill Gardens residents one day soon trekking to ballgames, theater performances, the Soda City Market and museums. They’ll spend time in the new public park that’s nearly complete at BullStreet just across from the senior community. By early next year, they’ll be taking walks to the Starbucks that’s under construction along Bull Street beside REI.
And over the next couple years, if all goes as planned, they’ll possibly be joined by hundreds more residents in new townhouses and apartments that are expected to be built soon across the district.
“As soon as we get back to some sort of normal ... BullStreet has so much to offer,” Anhar said. “Once BullStreet is all developed, I’m looking forward to that city within a city. ... I don’t want to wish my life away, but I can’t wait to see five to six years down the road for BullStreet.”
‘It’s really going to be OK’
Residents at Merrill Gardens are a step toward making the district an all-day place of activity. And REI has the potential to be a commercial catalyst for the district, “a major flag in the ground at BullStreet as being a national retail destination,” Hughes said. “I think that sends a very confident and clear signal to other national retailers that BullStreet is a great destination for retail.”
These two developments join a handful of townhouse residents and a couple hundred office workers at firms in the First Base Building and the Bakery building. The majority of activity in the district these days, though, is construction.
While progress may appear slow from the outside, developers and city leaders have emphasized that the district is a 20-year build-out project and say it’s moving along at an expected pace.
The pandemic “happened right when everything was about to move (at) BullStreet and about to get started,” said Sabrina Odom Edwards, director of the North Columbia Business Association and a member of the BullStreet community advisory committee. “It’s just happening slowly because of the pandemic. Everything is changing, but what will not change — and I truly believe this — is the interaction of people meeting in coffee shops and mingling, even if it’s close to home. If the new apartments and everything keep building and they build on that, they will have the people that will bring the small businesses there. ...
“It’s going to be OK,” she said. “It’s really going to be OK.”
District planners always expected having to face occasional economic slowdowns, Hughes said. What no one expected, though, was a global pandemic of unprecedented scale.
“That was something we never predicted when we said it would be 20 years, but we knew we would face challenges. So everything about BullStreet has been set up with flexibility in mind,” Hughes said.
The pandemic has created uncertainty for developers and businesses across all sectors, with everyone taking guesses as to what the proverbial “new normal” will be. But it’s also taught a few lessons that offer hope for the future of BullStreet, Hughes said.
“You’ve already seen through the pandemic that people crave being around others. They crave being outside. People miss and yearn being able to interact in great public spaces,” Hughes said. “Those have validated a lot of the decisions we made going into BullStreet. ... We wanted to create great public spaces, safe indoor and outdoor environments and very pedestrian friendly.”
What’s on deck?
Those future characteristics of BullStreet include a 20-acre public park — including a dog park — that’s expected to open for public use this fall. It sits behind the baseball park and directly across the street from Merrill Gardens.
While BullStreet has just gained its first shopping destination, it currently lacks any other hospitality businesses since its first restaurant, Bone-In Barbeque, shuttered early this year. But construction is coming along on a new Starbucks that’s expected to open early next year beside REI. And it will be joined by Iron Hill Brewery, which is expected to open later next year.
The Starbucks construction crew is one of at least five doing work at the campus right now, including an ongoing cleanout of the historic Babcock Building site, which will be converted to around 200 apartments over the next two years.
In addition, the second phase of townhomes are beginning to be built at the TownPark development, a mixed-use apartment development is moving forward at the site of the Williams Building adjacent to Segra Park, and land is being prepared for the future relocation of the University of South Carolina’s medical school behind the new public park.
And a bonus: Work is starting this week to install a new stoplight and crosswalk on Bull Street, which will connect the district’s new Matilda Evans Street to the Cottontown neighborhood.
“There is a lot of work happening behind the scenes, as there always has been from day one,” Hughes said. “We hope to have some more exciting things to announce in the near future.”
