Chicago developer revises plan for $70 million apartment tower on Assembly Street

A revised plan for a $70 million high-rise apartment tower on Assembly Street in downtown Columbia will return to a city design panel this week, six months after Columbia planners objected to the original design.

Chicago-based Clayco Realty Group since November has increased the proposed building’s height to 15 stories from 14, changed its color scheme to red and brown earth tones from white and gray and added more and larger windows.

The new plan for the proposed tower, called “The Edge,” includes room for 609 beds and a structured parking garage with space for 151 cars, 97 scooters and 160 bicycles, Clayco spokeswoman Tracey Mendrek said.

But those changes might not be enough to win over city planners, who in November criticized the original design for its “jumbled pattern of windows” and the “minimal detailing” on the building’s upper façade.

The new design has problems of its own, Columbia’s planning staff wrote in Design/Development Review Commission agenda documents released this week.

Those include the building’s height compared to its next-door neighbor, the three-story Richland County library, and the “monolithic” nature of its façade, planners wrote.

“Overall, there is little articulation of this building,” the planning staff, which advises the design panel, wrote. “The glass curtain walls at the corners add some variation, but also emphasize the verticality and height of the building.”

Clayco contends the new design and color relate better with downtown Columbia and the Vista than the original.

“The new design is appropriate in the context of the downtown skyline,” Mendrek said. “We have taken steps to reduce the appearance of the mass of the building with the redesigned, smaller floor plates and a slightly taller structure.”

Columbia planners wrote they could not give a complete evaluation to the design because they received the new plan only recently.

Clayco is scheduled to show the design panel its plan on Thursday. The developer can use feedback from that presentation to bolster its design before formally requesting approval from the panel.

Mendrek said Clayco hopes to formally apply for the panel’s approval within the next few months.

This story was originally published May 10, 2016 at 1:56 PM.