One of BullStreet’s oldest buildings is reborn. See the new Columbia business
A piece of Columbia’s history was formally reborn on a bight, crisp Wednesday afternoon at the BullStreet District.
The Laundry, a new event venue, officially opened at 2046 Talley St. in the BullStreet District, right behind The Babcock apartment development. Wednesday’s official debut of The Laundry was marked with a ribbon cutting and was attended by Mayor Daniel Rickenmann, BullStreet development leader Robert Hughes and a host of other elected officials and local dignitaries.
Developed by Columbia’s Avant Holdings, The Laundry features nearly 8,000 square feet of event space across two levels, geared toward weddings, corporate gatherings and any number of special occasions.
The new event venue is in a building that dates to 1883 and is the oldest surviving service building on the expansive property that formerly was home to the State Mental Hospital. The redevelopment of the 142-year-old laundry building is another key step in a 20-year-plan by Greenville’s Hughes Development and the city of Columbia to overhaul the sprawling, 181-acre former mental hospital campus into a district with residences, restaurants, retail offerings, offices, the Segra Park baseball stadium, a public park, the University of South Carolina’s planned new medical school and more.
In addition to the 8,000 square feet of event space in The Laundry, Avant Holdings managing partner Todd Avant noted there is an additional 8,000 square feet that will be used for retail or professional space in the future, plus a large grove available for outdoor events.
“We were able to restore and retain much of the historic character, despite the building being [previously] abandoned for years,” Avant said Wednesday of The Laundry. “When you walk inside, you’ve got soaring ceilings. ... When you look around, there are just all of these cool, historic character features.”
John Sherrer, the director of preservation at Historic Columbia, was among those in attendance at Wednesday’s ceremony. He noted that a number of historic buildings on the former state mental hospital site have now been preserved and tastefully updated for modern use.
“It just proves that old buildings can be taught new tricks in ways that are meaningful to our contemporary needs,” Sherrer said.
Robert Hughes, the president of BullStreet master development firm Hughes Development, noted The Laundry is another key piece of the puzzle in the district. In recent months, BullStreet has seen continued momentum, with announcements including a new food hall under construction, a new community lawn on the way that will include a Coastal Crust Pizza, the opening of a new Tupelo Honey restaurant and more.
Hughes also said it is critical to the project to find new, adaptive uses for historic buildings, such as the redevelopment of The Babcock and The Laundry.
“Having a place like The Laundry, that takes a really cool historic building and reimagines it, gives it new life, and allows it to be a place where people can gather and celebrate major milestones in life and add to the fabric of the experience of being at BullStreet, it’s hard to understate the importance of buildings like that for projects like BullStreet,” Hughes told The State.
This story was originally published April 11, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
