New 100-room hotel in Columbia's Vista neighborhood gains approval (2024)

COLUMBIA — A new hotel originally proposed for the Vista in 2020 is finally coming to fruition, joining the neighborhood’s continuing growth.

The four-story, 123-room hotel at the corner of Huger and Senate streets was approved by the city’s Design and Development Review Commission at a July 25 meeting, following a dispute over entrances to the hotel’s parking lot.

The project was originally approved by the city in November 2020, according to city documents. The property was then sold to another developer, who has been moving the project back through city channels since then.

The current design was approved by the city’s Design and Development Review Commission in June, under the condition the developer remove a parking lot access on Senate Street.

The developer asked the commission on July 25 to reverse that decision, saying the elimination of the access was “not a viable option for the development” in city documents.

The state Department of Transportation is requiring the developer add a concrete median on Huger Street, blocking right-hand turns into the parking lot, project applicant Graham Rambo said at the meeting.

“By eliminating this entrance, we will actually be adding to congestion in the immediate surrounding area and will actually be hurting traffic,” Graham said.

The commission approved the plan with the Senate Street access in a 4-1 vote. The commission had already approved the hotel’s Huger Street parking access.

Residents of the nearby City Club neighborhood had raised concerns the Senate Street access would bring traffic into the neighborhood. Some, including neighborhood resident and commission member Charles Leedecker, opposed the Senate Street access again on July 25.

Leedecker was the sole vote opposing the project, citing procedural concerns and the additional access potentially endangering pedestrians on Senate Street.

The hotel will include a lobby, gym and dining area with a covered patio on the first floor, as well as 121 parking spaces in a surface lot, according to city documents.

The hotel was originally proposed with five stories and 130 rooms but has since been scaled down, according to city documents.

Rambo told the commission the developer would move forward with the previously approved five-story plan, which included the Senate Street access, if the driveway was not approved for the four-story plan. The permits for the original plan are still valid, city staff said.

The site is made up of two formerly vacant lots bought by Huger Senate Hotel Associates in 2021 for a total of $2.2 million, according to county tax records. A vacant commercial building which stood there has since been demolished.

The developer will now begin to acquire updated permits for the project and hope to start construction “as soon as possible,” Rambo said.

The Senate Street access is in contrast to the city’s long-term plans for the Innovista Design District area. The plan calls for many streets — including Senate — to be redesigned for more pedestrian and bike traffic while directing vehicles through already major thoroughfares like Huger, which is one of the busiest roads in the city.

The property is next door to One Eared Cow Glass glass blowing and Lewis & Clark art studio, and is bordered on the other side by the McDonald’s at the corner of Gervais and Huger and the City Club neighborhood.

Lewis & Clark owner Clark Ellefson told the Post & Courier he had no issue with the potential new neighbor.

“It’ll be nice to have something on that corner besides some messed up corner,” Ellefson said.

The area has seen steady growth in the past few years, at the behest of the city and local businesses but amid grumblings of nearby residents.

The proposed Huger/Senate streets hotel will sit across Senate from the under-construction, seven-story Homewood Suites and Tru by Hilton, which has also faced pushback from City Club residents.

Up Huger and across Gervais Street, a seven-story, 250 unit apartment complex and a $100 million housing developmentare moving forward on land formerly occupied by SCE&G’s gas manufacturing plant and Kline Iron & Steel Company.

The city has also given initial approval to a rezoning plan allowing for taller buildings, namely hotels, in the Vista as part of long-running efforts to attract a major hotel for the city’s convention center.

The growth in the Vista and the district street plan is part of the city’s long-term push to develop land near the Congaree River, with the ultimate goal of connecting Lincoln Street from Gervais to Blossom streets and utilizing the riverfront in a public park.

A new road bridge carrying Greene Street over the downtown railroad tracks opened in late 2022, providing an easy route from the University of South Carolina’s main campus to Huger, with a spot for a future connection to the extended Lincoln Street. Similar improvements are planned for the Blossom Street bridge.

Other recent developments in the area include a 700-bed student housing development at the corner of Huger and Blossomstreet now under construction and a $170 million, 940-bed private student apartment complex nearing completion directly across Gadsden Street from USC’s Colonial Life Arena.