Two new high-rises planned for Columbia’s Main Street. What will they include?
The developers of Main Street student apartment building The Hub are back at it. Specifically, they want to bring an even bigger Columbia project, valued at $225 million, directly across the street.
Core Spaces, a Chicago-based developer, plans to build two high-rise towers in the center of downtown: one for student apartments, one for luxury market-rate apartments geared toward professionals and other non-student renters.
Developers hope to build a 22-story private student dorm and a 26-story market-rate apartment building, situation on top of a floor of retail space, all on an undeveloped parking lot on Main Street between Hampton and Washington streets. The property, adjacent to the Wells Fargo office tower, had been owned by Wells Fargo since the 1990s.
The LLC “Columbia 1441 Partners” purchased the property in November, according to property records. Documents filed with the city show that Core Spaces is the developer that will lead the effort.
In addition to the new housing, the project will also include a parking garage and 1,500 parking spaces, according to documents submitted to the Columbia Board of Zoning Appeals. The application notes that the garage will also have public parking spaces.
The exact number of units between the two projects will fall between 720 and 725, with approximately 2,300 to 2,400 beds, according to the application.
Core Spaces in 2014 turned a former SCANA office building into The Hub, a private student apartment that for the first time brought a mass of student residents to Main Street.
Matt Kennell, CEO of the Main Street District, said he is excited the developer has an idea to bring even more bodies downtown.
When The Hub came online over a decade ago, there were concerns about how students living on Main Street would impact quality of life. Kennell said none of the worst fears about disruptive behavior or vandalism have been realized, and instead the students have been a boon to businesses in the city center.
“It’s not harmful to Main Street at all,” he said.
The projects would help make Main Street taller, with the market-rate apartment building expected to reach up to 270 feet tall, that’s about 20 feet taller than the Wells Fargo building next door. Columbia’s tallest building, the Capital Center at the corner of Gervais Street and Main, is just under 350 feet tall.
The new project on Main Street would also be coming online at the same time Columbia City Council is eyeing new limits on private student dorms downtown. Earlier this year, the city council considered adopting a total ban on new private student housing in certain downtown areas. The council quickly, and behind closed doors, walked that plan back. They are now considering limits on student dorms with more than four bedrooms, which should not affect the Core Spaces project.
A site plan for the project shows that the private student dorms would not have more than four bedrooms, with a mix of two- and three-bedroom units as well. The plans also note that no bedroom would be occupied by more than one person.
Still, the new housing projects would put over 700 housing units on less than three acres of land, which is too densely populated to align with the city’s current rules. In order to build the housing towers, the developers will need a special exception from the city.
The Board of Zoning Appeals is expected to hear the case for the new Main Street development at its regular May 1 meeting.
This story was originally published April 22, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
