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Jan. 20, 2008

Public backing Innovista, park: Survey shows 90 percent of residents support development

Reprinted with permission from The State

By JEFF WILKINSON - jwilkinson@thestate.com

About 90 percent of Columbia residents support the development of USC’s research campus and a regional riverfront park, a city survey covering a wide range of issues shows.

More than 600 residents filled out the nonscientific survey distributed to community groups, civic clubs and trade associations. It also was passed out at a series of public meetings and available online for six months.

The survey is part of the city’s research for a state-mandated comprehensive plan, called Columbia Plan 2018, that will guide growth over the next decade.

The public support should have an impact on efforts to attract not only companies to the Innovista research campus but the first $40 million in federal money requested for its accompanying park and street projects.

“Certainly, as you are talking to prospects, they want to know if the community is behind these kinds of efforts,” said USC’s John Parks, Innovista’s executive director.

The theory of Innovista is that researchers attracted to the campus will live, work and play in the same compact area — a 30-block chunk of downtown anchored by USC’s 200-year-old Horseshoe to the east and, to the west, the Congaree River and the estimated $77 million, 74-acre park.

Supporters hope Innovista, developed by Boston-based consultants Sasaki Associates, will be the engine that will drive the city’s new economy.

“There’s a growing consensus that for transforming change, Innovista is our best opportunity,” Mayor Bob Coble said. “It is the future for Columbia.”

Innovista is the product of an alliance between the city, USC and the Guignards, one of the city’s founding families and the owners of the riverfront land where the park will be built.

The park will stretch along the river from Gervais Street south to Granby Village. The plan calls for condos and apartment buildings, many with ground-floor retail, to ring the park and stretch back to Assembly Street.

Once completed, boosters say, Columbia should have a more vibrant and upscale downtown to attract a “creative class” of researchers and entrepreneurs.

Attorney Bill Boyd is chairman of the Waterfront Steering Committee, a group of public officials and private residents who have been pounding the Innovista drum for more than a year.

The high level of support reflected in the survey mirrors “the reception we’ve gotten from the 75 to 100 presentations we’ve made to just about anyone who would listen,” he said.

Support for the park, especially, piqued the interest of city planner Jeff Crick, who conducted the survey.

As expected, residents listed the availability of diverse housing and improved transportation at the top of their list of priorities, he said. But respondents’ interest in parks finished third, ahead of land use, economic development, community facilities and cultural issues.

Among other strong priorities for residents were tighter rules restricting developers, more protection for trees, more sidewalks and a network of bicycle lanes.

“But the one thing that stood out was the emphasis people placed on parks,” Crick said.

Respondents urged the city to build more small, neighborhood “pocket” parks, the survey shows.

“They are seen as places where people can come together and are a safe place for children to play,” Crick said.

But large parks — the new Innovista riverfront park and the Three Rivers Greenway — also received strong support. They were viewed as points of civic pride and tourist attractions, Crick said. “People like the idea of having those amenities in the downtown area,” he said.

The city will begin another round of surveys and public meetings in the spring before developing a draft of a comprehensive plan to present to Columbia City Council, Crick said.

“We’ll go before planning commission and City Council and make revisions as we go along,” he said. “Then we will have the issue taken care of for the next 10 years.”

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