Another hotel on Huger Street? Development is planned for this vacant Columbia site
Another hotel soon could pop up on Columbia’s busy Huger Street, right next to a hotel currently under construction.
The new four-story, 123-room hotel would sit across Senate Street from the under-construction Homewood Suites and Tru Hotel by Hilton being built behind the McDonald’s at Huger and Gervais streets. It would join a slate of new projects underway in the Huger Street corridor.
Plans for the new hotel on the corner of Senate Street have been percolating since 2020, but stalled when the original developer sold the site. In 2021, an LLC called Huger Senate Hotel Associates purchased two adjacent parcels between Huger, Senate and Pendleton streets, next to Stormwater Studios, for a combined $2.2 million.
Columbia’s Design/Development Review Commission approved the architectural plans for the new hotel in June, but on the condition that the design be slightly altered, including the elimination of a vehicle entrance on Senate Street.
Now, a month later, the developer is returning to the commission to ask that the Senate Street entrance be allowed.
“The applicant has determined that the elimination of the Senate Street vehicular access is not a viable option for the development,” the application submitted for the July 25 meeting reads.
This change has residents who live in the City Club neighborhood between Gervais and Senate streets concerned, said Carolyn Leedecker, president of the City Club homeowners association. Leedecker previously told The State that it is already difficult to navigate the traffic on Gervais and Huger streets, which are two major city thoroughfares.
The portion of Huger Street between Gervais Street and the Interstate 126 interchange is the second-busiest road in downtown Columbia. It recorded an annual average daily traffic count of 38,300 in 2022 — surpassed only by Elmwood Avenue, which recorded figures nearing an average of 50,000 vehicles per day.
Eliminating the entrance to the new hotel on Senate Street was a top priority for the City Club neighborhood, Leedecker said. Now that the developer is asking to reinsert that entrance into the design, Leedecker has started a letter-writing campaign to lobby against the change in design.
City staff have recommend the request to reinsert the driveway be approved, but the request will still need to be given the green light by the commission at its regular meeting Thursday.
The new hotel plans also include a 120-space parking lot.
If approved, the hotel would join a fast-growing corridor that has seen major developments come online or being proposed in recent years. Once known as the home of the South Carolina state prison that housed notorious killer Pee Wee Gaskins, Huger Street is seeing new momentum.
A new 250-unit apartment complex is moving forward on a sliver of the former Kline Iron and Steel site, and a new $100 million housing development next door has received tax incentives from Richland County. A major student housing development is also planned for the corner of Huger and Blossom streets.
