City could borrow from retiree benefit fund to pay for BullStreet parking garages
Columbia City Council is set to consider borrowing from one of the city’s retiree benefits funds to pay for construction of a pair of parking garages in the BullStreet District.
Council will take up first reading on a measure at its Nov. 17 meeting that would make way for about $16.5 million in funding for the construction of two garages at the former State Mental Hospital site that has been undergoing redevelopment in recent years.
Under its agreement with Greenville’s Hughes Development to overhaul the sprawling BullStreet site, the city is contractually obligated to construct 1,600 parking spaces for the project.
According to city special projects administrator Gregory Tucker, who has worked closely with developers in the BullStreet District, the coming first phase of parking garages would include about 230 spaces in conjunction with the to-be-constructed WestLawn building, a multi-use, five-story structure that will have office space and retail. There would also be about 620 spaces in another garage just east of the REI outdoor gear store that opened at the site earlier this year.
The remaining 750 parking spaces the city is obligated to construct would come later.
Construction on the initial two parking garages would likely begin in the first quarter of 2021, according to Assistant City Manager Missy Gentry.
To pay for the first two garages, the city is proposing to borrow $16.5 million from its retiree benefits fund known as the “other post-employment benefits” fund. The city would later pay that back, with 1.5 percent interest, via parking revenues and other funds over time.
“Staff feels very confident that this is the best alternative, and that it’s safe for the (retiree) fund,” Gentry told The State.
At-large Councilman Howard Duvall is on-board with the garage-funding strategy.
“I think it is a good use of the money,” Duvall said of the move to borrow the roughly $16 million from the retiree fund for the garages. “We are going to pay ourselves more interest than the funds have been getting over the last few years. We think it will be a win-win.”
The city committed to more than $90 million in public investment at the BullStreet site. That includes $29 million toward the construction of Segra Park baseball stadium, $31 million in infrastructure upgrades, and an estimated $32 million for all of the eventual parking garage facilities.
There has been some momentum for the BullStreet development this year, as well as a couple setbacks.
Segra Park was not able to host Columbia Fireflies baseball fans this season, as the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the minor league slate nationwide. The Class A Fireflies welcomed more than 245,000 fans to the ballpark in 2019. The Fireflies also are in the midst of nailing down a new Major League affiliate after their previous parent club, the New York Mets, announced recently it was reorganizing its minor league associations.
And in September, a three-alarm fire ravaged the iconic Babcock Building and its instantly recognizable cupola. The 162-year-old building has been slated for apartments and other amenities, and developers have indicated they still plan to move forward with the project.
The aforementioned REI outdoor gear store — the second such outlet in South Carolina — opened at BullStreet earlier this year, and a Starbucks coffee shop is under construction on the site. The Merrill Gardens senior living development just east of Segra Park also opened in August. Other entities in the BullStreet development include the Capgemini tech firm, Downtown Church (which includes the Central Energy event facility) and a Founders Federal Credit Union, among other things.
The WestLawn building, announced in October, will include the Robinson Gray Stepp & Laffitte law firm on the top two floors. It also will have space for retail stores and other Class A office space. Proffitt Dixon Partners, of Charlotte, also has plans to construct a mixed-use development with 260 apartments near Segra Park.
As for the second group of 750 parking garage spaces, Gentry said she expects discussion will start on those soon.
“I will tell you development is progressing nicely on the site and there’s a lot of interest for the parcels that are not yet spoken for, so I suspect there will be conversations about the next (750) shortly,” Gentry said.
