Spes

the free market

As should be clear from the context, by "empty" I mean buildings that do not have an active, daily purpose. E.g. the Columbia Metro Convention Center, the Koger Center, the Carolina Coliseum, the Colonial Life Arena, the SC Bar Convention Center, and soon the USC Alumni Center. Each of those event centers doesn't draw activity on a daily basis. Moreover, EdVenture and the SC State Museum don't exactly create the kind of traffic that spills over into the activity of the area. It should be noted that this isn't prescriptive, in that these are all nice buildings that serve a purpose (save for the Coliseum). However, jamming another giant attraction into that spot would only take up valuable space near the river without bringing daily, sustained crowds that would make the area a permanent part of the city's fabric. I think with proper planning and economic luck those lots could be a major extension of the Vista that would make it a pretty good area. For chrissake, it's downtown land in a major metropolitan city a stone's throw from the water. Not to mention that any other attraction would be a bigger gamble on a single use likely involving taxpayer money rather than just opening the area to private development.

Another full-block attraction that generates negligible foot-traffic would be a move in the wrong direction, as well as a sizable monetary gamble. Columbia is swimming in giant, empty buildings, but years behind the curve in terms of areas that can generate sustained energy. If the market is right, the block could communicate directly with the Vista and has the potential to expand the contiguous city straight to the river. Another attraction would be an impediment to that, and instead the activated parts of the city would be moved further away the river while big seasonal lots take up the entire area

That spot, not including the existing building on the block, is actually a hair bigger than the footprint for Columbia's downtown convention center, which is actually pretty nice considering that it's in Columbia.

It's unclear which proposed design they're reporting was approved of: the first or the second from the following application http://www.greenvillesc.gov/PlanningZoning/PlanningApplications/Applications/2014/DECEMBER/DesignReviewBoard/12-04-2014/CA-14-288-702SouthMainStreet.pdf

Whatever it is you mean by that sentence, it sounds like you mean "kick out the poor people."

hilarious how much confusion this has caused. Lot is TMS # 08916-07-01. you'll notice that there is nothing on the interwebs about it

followed by another, more disappointing announcement in ten-twelve weeks

The two of you are coming from different points that aren't mutually exclusive. Of course you don't need a franchise behind you to run a grocery store. If you know everything about the industry, and you don't need anything that a franchise has to offer, then you're all set. But if you don't know how the industry works, then your chances for success aren't pretty. Grocery stores work on hilariously slim margins, and I can imagine that wondering into the business like a puppy in traffic will end poorly. It's the same in restaurants, if you assume that you can run one based purely on your cooking skill or work ethic without understanding management and purchasing decisions, then you're already set up for failure. Not making any statement of opinion on this guy's prospect for success, just moderating. Proceed

You're forcing me to play the role of optimist and I hate it haha. I think it's all going to be a reshuffling of the area if all of these developments restrict themselves to students; the newer places closer to downtown take bodies from the apartments further from the city, so the newly empty complexes have to either market to a different population, reinvent themselves, or die. Even if demand is being satisfied right now (which it is not; residential rental is very much a seller's market in Columbia) the supply isn't static. Two more things to remember: (1) not all of these are going to be built, and because construction is going to be staggered (by the nature of it, not by design) if the new supply saturates the market the late-comers are going to cut their losses and go elsewhere (2) you're not talking about needing 4,000 more people to fill the beds, you're talking about moving those 4,000 people into a more efficient area (which also happens to make the developers a pretty penny). The same thing is happening in Clemson right now. There's a giant student population (albeit smaller than USC) developers have catered toward for a long time with apartments and housing, but the amount of available housing downtown (if you can call it that) has been the same for years, and all the developments were much further from campus. Now that more developments are going online in Clemson proper, and the University is building more (and better) student housing, if the trend picks up then those that put their money into the suburbs are going to be left holding the bag later on down the road. Capitalism! I think the smart play here, though, is not to restrict these developments to students both because it's a dubious bet to put all your money on one pony, and because as far as building an area making the area solely a student district could be counterproductive. Obviously this is the pool that's most available and they're going to go after it first, and if the area is nice enough other people will want to move there, but it can't hurt for one of these developments to start marketing to YoPros. I put my meaningless vote on Palmetto Compress and the Edwards project. I think ideally, from an urban planning perspective, the most desirable outcome is for these new apartments and dorms to move the student population into a dense university footprint supplemented by YoPros, grad students, etc... (think College of Charleston) and make the current glut of student housing in Shandon, Rosewood, and the like more of a young family area. This is in a perfect world, twenty years down the road, accounting for weather patterns in Beijing, though.

I remember when the completion date was scheduled for winter 2013. But then some stuff happened and the best thing that could have possibly happened was a postponement to May 2014. http://www.thestate.com/2013/07/10/2855749/new-darla-moore-school-of-business.html. This couldn't possibly be explained by the project just taking a long ass time to complete. To be fair though, paying people overtime would make the whole thing prohibitively more expensive, considering there is no real loss in completing two months later.

Set up reminds me of Brewster Court in Charleston off of Coming. That works in that area which is less dense than most parts, although, granted, it's still denser than that part of South Main.

While that's fun to believe, historically cities have been in a period of dilatory expansion and contraction. As the years go by and land's use changes they get built out, yes, but from at least the start of industrial urban life until today there have been net migrations both into and out of cities, both independently and as a whole. Now I know this is an exercise in futility because some people (cough cough) refuse to grapple with the harsh daylight of reason, but a lot of the concern in urban development has to be whether the city will be cashing in on an urban influx before net migration favors periphery again. Columbia is a perfect case study of that, and I think what makes it especially difficult to develop is the reliance it's had on its suburbs for residential and commercial growth. I certainly hope we can buck that trend, but it's something to be concerned about and not something that gets brought up a lot in the rah-rah environment of development discussions. Not to mention the fact that areas do in fact stop growing, start shrinking, and all grow at different paces that affect the place and the things around it. Matt mentioned Downtown Charleston so let's talk about Downtown Charleston. The area around and to the East of Joe Riley Park is, for all intents and purposes, a rough part of town, but Charleston has been seeing a dramatic period of growth in other areas that were previously depressed like Upper King, Coming north of the Crosstown, and to less of an extent northern stretches of East Bay. What that should show people is that growth doesn't just happen on its own like the Blob, but it depends what is driving the growth and what the area contributes to the growth. Further, the way that areas grow impact others: if King and Market Streets don't get the face-lifts that they got in Riley's earlier years, Upper King wouldn't be where it is today. If Greenville doesn't revamp Falls Park so dramatically, Main Street probably doesn't see its present level of success and the West End isn't such an attractive development option. It's just plain naive to say that A has grown and B has grown so C will necessarily grow.

Maybe we should ask why the companies in the region don't care about downtown before we jump to any conclusions

source?

where will the B&BS building go next to Lee? East, West, or South of the new wing?

That would be really nice if it happened, except most economists have shown that it's seldom the case. http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/11/stadium-financing http://www.psmag.com/navigation/business-economics/america-has-a-stadium-problem-62665/ http://books.google.com/books?id=PGRkblShhU8C&pg=PA214&lpg=PA214&dq=minor+league+baseball+public+fund+return+economics&source=bl&ots=EBfBrgrh3P&sig=z8COtuFJMbc0BP8eblsqH34M_BU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gHjeUoONBaPNsQS094LICQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwATgK#v=onepage&q=minor%20league%20baseball%20public%20fund%20return%20economics&f=false