Work to improve fraught stretch of Columbia’s Main Street finally begins. Here’s how it will transform
Construction to transform Columbia’s Main Street south of the state capitol complex has officially begun.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation broke ground Thursday on a long-awaited project to revitalize the southern corridor of Main Street. The work has been a long time coming.
Plans to go from five lanes to two, install green space, widen sidewalks and add bike lanes between Pendleton and Blossom streets have been in the works since at least 2017. The effort has been plagued by false starts and rising construction costs, which pushed the project over budget and delayed its groundbreaking.
The roughly $23 million project is a multi-governmental collaboration, using federal, state, county and city dollars, as well as money from the University of South Carolina.
The state Department of Transportation is leading the project, but the university has been heavily invested as well.
USC requested the initial S.C. Department of Transportation study on the corridor renovation about five years ago and has been involved in the design process. The university’s frequent collaborator, design firm Sasaki, authored a 2017 plan for the area that included recommendations for pedestrian promenades and wide stretches of green space.
“That segment of Main Street has not seen the quality of development that you see on other urban streets,” USC architect Derek Gruner previously said. With the westward move, South Main “finds itself very near the heart of our campus.”
Eventually, Gruner said, the hope is no more street-facing parking lots, but instead five- to six-story buildings housing things like retail, restaurants and office space packed as densely as possible.
Work on the stretch of road is expected to be finished by summer 2025.
