Plans for Assembly Street apartment tower absent from design panel’s agenda

Plans for a 260-unit, $70 million apartment complex on Assembly Street again were absent from the Columbia design panel’s agenda on Thursday.

The plans had been deferred from a November meeting of the city’s Design/Development Review Commission. Chris McKee, president of Chicago-based Clayco Realty Group, told The State in early November the developer would use that time to iron out design concerns with Columbia city planners.

Lucinda Statler, Columbia’s urban design planner, said the developer has missed the deadline, which was Wednesday, to request project approval at the panel’s January meeting. The developer still can give an informational presentation then, she said.

"They're still just working on their proposal," Statler said. Statler said the developer has not indicated to her that it is withdrawing the plans entirely.

McKee said the complex, called The Edge, would include up to 600 beds and a parking garage with up to 300 spaces. McKee said he expects the complex, planned for a site next to the Richland County Public Library in downtown Columbia, to be filled primarily with students.

City planners had listed a “number of significant concerns that need to be addressed” with the project in the design panel’s agenda documents. Those included a “jumbled pattern of windows” and “minimal detailing” on the building’s upper facade, city planners wrote.

McKee said then that Clayco is considering making changes to the window pattern, shortening the building from 14 stories to 12 and adding “texture and character” to the complex.

Efforts to reach McKee on Thursday were unsuccessful.

This story was originally published December 10, 2015 at 12:14 PM.