Taller buildings in Columbia? How hotel push could change the look of parts of downtown
Columbia needs more and bigger hotels. But restrictions in parts of downtown stand in the way of some taller development. Those barriers could be cut down to allow bigger buildings to go up in some areas, but not without concern from people who live nearby.
Columbia’s lack of full-service hotels has cost the city in the past. It’s one of the main reasons tourism experts cite for struggling to get NCAA March Madness tournament games back to the city. And the lack of hotel space also makes it hard to compete against places like Chattanooga, Tennessee, and other similarly-sized cities for conventions that help boost local spending.
City leaders have been hoping to attract a hotel specifically to aid in that cause for years, and it seems they’re close to achieving that dream.
Westin Hotels, an upscale hotel brand owned by Marriott, has proposed building a new project with a minimum of 250 rooms, city leaders said could stand up to 14 to 16 floors tall, right next door to the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center where Senate Street meets Lincoln Street.
The project also would include meeting space in the hotel that would be owned and operated by the Convention Center, and ballroom space ideal for large gatherings.
The new hotel is “vital to the future success of the Convention Center,” said Bill Ellen, president of the Experience Columbia tourism bureau. “We’re out of space.”
But in order for the hotel to come to fruition, the city needs to amend design guidelines meant to keep the Innovista District uniform by removing a barrier that prevents buildings from being taller than 75 feet if they are within 300 feet of a historic district.
Just six out of more than 400 parcels in the district fall into that restriction category, but Innovista residents are concerned that the change might open the floodgates for unregulated building.
“Are they planning on building a 20-story building? Those are the kind of things that neighbors are worried about,” City Club resident Mary Langston said at a meeting Wednesday. “Everybody is saying, ‘Oh yeah, build, build,’ but if this was in your neighborhood, I think you would want that consideration, too.”
City leaders Wednesday hoped to assuage any concerns about over-building during a community meeting to discuss the proposed change.
First, the current 75-foot height limit only applies to buildings within 300 feet of a residential or historic overlay district, meaning buildings beyond that 300-foot boundary are already allowed to be taller. The proposed change would remove the restriction for properties near historic districts, which only affects six properties in the Innovista area.
That area is bound by Gervais Street to the north and the railroad tracks between Catawba and Assembly streets to the south.
Every building proposal in the district would also still need to be approved by the Columbia Design/Development Review Commission and go through proper planning and development procedures.
But residents worried that future projects would repeat frustrations shared about the new seven-story Homewood Suites and Tru Hotel being built at Gervais and Williams streets.
Nearby residents rallied against that project two years ago, worried about its height and proximity to nearby townhouses and the Girl Scouts of South Carolina headquarters on Williams Street.
Despite their protests, the hotel is being built without many of the residents’ desired concessions, several of that hotel’s neighbors have previously said and reiterated Wednesday.
City Councilmen Will Brennan, Tyler Bailey and Mayor Daniel Rickenmann were all present Wednesday and assured residents that they would be included in any future planning for the district. But Rickenmann also stressed the need to develop unused parcels downtown.
Growth downtown has been a pillar of Rickenmann’s mayoral administration. So known is he for wanting more construction downtown that city staff once gifted him a miniature construction crane as a nod to those goals.
“We have to go vertical here,” he told residents Wednesday. “A balance is very important as well. When we sell Justice Square, that’s probably going to be, hopefully, something really cool and residential as well.”
Justice Square is the city’s police department headquarters located at the corner of Washington and Lincoln streets in the downtown Vista district. The city is in the process of selling more than a dozen properties used by the police department and relocating those services to a new headquarters for the department at the former Aflac property on Huger Street.
Other upcoming projects in the area will also add height to downtown, including a new hotel project at Gervais and Wayne streets by developer Ben Arnold, which is expected to reach about 130 feet tall.
Ellen, the tourism leader, has often stressed the need for more hotels downtown to support bigger conventions. Plans to expand the Convention Center for that purpose have not come together, and a previous proposal, also from Arnold, to build new full-service hotels for that purpose fell through when Richland County decided against paying for a parking garage to support that project.
The new Westin Hotel would help revive goals to bring more business to the Convention Center, Ellen said Wednesday. Plans for the hotel have not been finalized, but city leaders Wednesday were optimistic that it will come to fruition.
This story was originally published May 29, 2024 at 2:00 PM.
