Current News Releases
Sept. 19, 2007
Innovista vision: University planners, Guignard family support rezoning for master plan
Story reprinted with permission from Free Times
Cool cities--no, that's not just the name of a Richland County program to lower carbon emissions. It's also a description of cities like New York, Boston and even Charleston that USC and Columbia are trying to join with the university's grand Innovista development.
Imagine it--a city with a riverfront park, 11 million square feet of retail, office and residential space, a pedestrian downtown--all connected with the enlightening theme of a university. A place for young people, working professionals and empty nesters who want the thrill of a big city, but with beautiful weather, minimal traffic, and of course, eclectic Southern charm.
Guignard and Associates, the heirs of one of the founding families of Columbia, has partnered with USC and the city to bring forth this vision, which Guignard representatives presented to the city Planning Commission on Sept. 10 in the form of a master plan for Innovista. The plan is scheduled to go before City Council for approval in October.
Under the plan, developed by USC's planning consultants, the international Sasaki Associates firm based near Boston, the university's new baseball stadium will anchor the southwestern portion of the district. The research component will be located near the university, while a wide mix of residential and retail will be clustered close to the Congaree River. Currently cut off from the river by railroad tracks, a re-landscaped Greene Street will be extended via a pedestrian bridge to link the campus's iconic Horseshoe with the waterfront.
Several developments are already under way in realizing this dream of Innovista. One key piece of the research campus, the Arnold School of Public Health at Assembly and College streets, is completed, and two others--the Horizon Center and Discovery Plaza--are under construction.
The Horizon Center, at Assembly and Blossom streets, and Discovery Plaza, on the block bounded by Greene, Lincoln, Park and College streets, represent a capital investment of nearly $142 million combined.
One large hurdle facing implementation of the master plan is zoning.
Mayor Bob Coble says he doesn't think it will be an issue. Plans for City Council to rezone the area from heavy and light industrial to mixed use are in the works, Coble says. "We'll have to get briefed on exactly what the request will be," he says. "I feel like there's a lot of support building for it."
That's what Sasaki Associates is hoping for.
"The rezoning of the area will allow the trend of downtown residential to continue," says Dick Galehouse, Sasaki Associates' point person on Innovista.
Galehouse says a waterfront park would give the public access to the river, allowing the city to complete its Three Rivers Greenway. "If you create beautiful public places, the private development will follow," Galehouse says.
He also says the economic development generated by Innovista will be unparalleled in the city's recent history. "Research universities are taking their research activities and applying it," Galehouse says. "That creates a lot of high-paying jobs typically."
Charlie Thompson, spokesman for Guignard and Associates, says the family supports rezoning the area mixed use. "The industrial zoning classifications are inconsistent with the direction in which the city needs to be going with respect to development within this urban context," Thompson says.
Innovista is still in its infancy, with the hoped-for approval of the master plan by City Council just the beginning of the 15-year blueprint for redevelopment.
Funding is another question.
Members of the state's congressional delegation are working to secure federal dollars for a waterfront park, according to Sasaki Associates.
Galehouse says it would help if a special tax district in the Vista was extended to include the waterfront area of the plan, because then a percentage of the tax base could be used to help implement the blueprint.
"Columbia is a cool city," Thompson says. "If Columbia wants, it can certainly be an even cooler city if the initiatives of Innovista come to fruition."
