See renderings for new high-rise housing towers on Columbia’s Main Street
Plans to build a pair of housing towers on Columbia’s Main Street continue to move ahead. Now, developers are sharing what the project may look like when complete.
The project would put 22 stories of student housing next to 26 stories of market-rate apartments, with a cafe space on the ground floor. It would fill space that is currently a parking lot on Main Street next to Columbia’s Wells Fargo building, where a mural by local artist Ija Charles is currently visible.
Developers say they have a plan to protect the mural and “activate” the area near the would-be coffee shop on the ground floor.
Between the two buildings, there will be roughly 725 new apartments on Main Street when the project is finished. Developers are also building a parking garage with 1,470 parking spaces. A portion of the new parking will be preserved for public use at different times of the day, developers have also said.
Wells Fargo had owned the property since the 1990s but never built on it. The LLC “Columbia 1441 Partners” purchased the property in November, according to property records.
The towers will be separate but conjoined, with separate entrances for the student side and the market-rate side.
The project’s developer is Core Spaces, which 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.
Columbia’s Design/Development Review Commission will consider the project’s appearance at a regular meeting Thursday.
