One student apartment developer scales down height, while another project remains in limbo

Plans for a previously announced private student apartment project at Assembly and Pendleton streets, a block from the South Carolina State House, call for the building to be slashed in height.

The building is one of two student apartment complexes planned near the State House. The other is caught in a controversy about its height.

After last year proposing a 14-story, 848-bed private student dormitory tower at Assembly and Pendleton streets, Manhattan-based developer Park7 Group has returned to the city with a revised site plan. The new plan features nearly 20 percent fewer beds and would be less than half the originally planned height.

Since last year, Park7 has acquired an additional quarter-acre of adjacent land, which allows it to scale back the height, said Paul Levine of Park7.

The city’s Design/Development Review Commission on Thursday approved the new six-story site and design plans for the project.

Situated along Assembly, Pendleton and Park streets, the property was owned for years by the family of state Rep. Beth Bernstein, D-Richland.

New project details include:

▪ Six residential stories (previously 12-14, along Assembly Street)

▪ 227 units, including studio, one-, two-, three-, four- and five-bedroom suites (previously 318)

▪ 684 beds (previously 848)

▪ Ground-level retail at the corner of Assembly and Pendleton streets

▪ A pair of enclosed courtyards

▪ A nine-story parking garage, flanked by two six-story residential components. Four stories of the garage will be below ground.

▪ A pool and amenities deck on the roof

Levine said the project could cost somewhere between $40 million and $45 million to construct. If construction begins by the end of this year, as the developer hopes, the apartments could open around summer of 2017, Levine said.

The site already received approval last year from the city’s Board of Zoning Appeals to exceed density restrictions.

The news that the project will have a new, shorter profile comes amidst an ongoing dispute involving another proposed student complex.

The University of South Carolina and a Memphis-based developer are at odds over a 15-story student apartment tower the company hopes to build along Main Street about a block from USC’s Horseshoe and two blocks from the planned site of the Park7 apartments.

The Design/Development Review Commission on Thursday received closed-door legal advice “relating to a potential claim” regarding plans for the controversial 15-story apartment tower at the Sandy’s Famous Hot Dogs site along Main Street.

USC has said the building would be too tall, too densely populated and, based on a study disputed by the developer, would cast a shadow on the university’s historic Horseshoe.

The developer has said decreasing the height and density of the building would not be economically feasible.

The commission had been scheduled yet again to consider approval or denial of the site design plan after three months of deferring a vote.

But the vote was deferred again, and the project is on hold for at least another month.

This story was originally published August 13, 2015 at 7:47 PM with the headline "One student apartment developer scales down height, while another project remains in limbo."