COLUMBIA, S.C. — Scott Middleton and his family have been developing the 1600 block of Main Street for the past five years. An ordained Methodist minister, Middleton believes he has a mission to make life as good as it can be for people.
His business for the past 20 years has been caring for seniors through South Carolina House Calls, a nurse practitioner program that goes into people’s homes to administer health care; and Agape Hospice, the largest hospice provider in the state of South Carolina.
More recently, Middleton has been investing and creating businesses in downtown Columbia.
We sat down with him at The Main Course, formerly The Venue, at 1624 Main, for a chat about what he has accomplished – and what he has planned – in his properties on Main and beyond.
“What we’ve always looked at,” he says, “is how do we increase the quality of life for people. And ultimately, I think, God’s wish is for us is for us to live as a productive and quality of life as possible and if I can enhance that a little bit through a good doctor, or through a good end-of-life experience, or through just having a really good time.”
Middleton started out on Main Street by moving his Agape senior care corporate offices from West Columbia to a building that the City of Columbia owned at 1624 Main. According to Middleton, the city had purchased the property in order to build the Cannon Parking Garage and had removed 50 foot off the back of the structure. Once the building was put up for sale, Middleton was approached by Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin and developer Lee Mashburn about relocating there in 2014.
For the past five years, Middleton has had his Agape offices in the third and fourth floors of the building. Now, he says, he’s gradually relocating again because the 1600 block of Main Street is becoming more of an entertainment space. (The Nickelodeon Theater is across the street and Columbia Museum of Art is in the 1500 block of Main, and Soda City Market runs the 1300-1500 blocks on Saturdays)
Over the past year, Middleton has increased his footprint in downtown Columbia by purchasing three more buildings in the 1600 block and two buildings in the 1700 block of Main, two buildings on Taylor Street near Hotel Trundle, and five buildings on North Main.
Middleton says he has a passion for old things. He says he purchased the properties "part of the reason is that we really just started looking at these old buildings and realized to protect the investment we have, we have to make sure that the rest of the block and the rest of the building space is being utilized appropriately."
The buildings that he owns at 1614, 1619, 1623, 1624, 1631, 1635 and 1637 Main were constructed in the late 1899s to early 1900s. He and his family have worked to restore them and maintain the original character, even -- as in the case of The Grand -- taking inspiration for naming and function.
"Several people have come to me and said, 'you're just gonna buy the whole place,' and I say, 'look, you can have any of the any one of these buildings that you can find a business for.' "
Here is a breakdown of Middleton's properties and his future plans:
1614 Main: The building in on the south side of the alleyway connecting Main Street to the Cannon Garage on Taylor Street. This building houses a 24-hour gym, a day spa, and Main Street Physician’s office -- open 7 days a week. Plans are to move the health care components further up Main and create another entertainment space. Good Life Café is at the front of the building, facing Main, and Middleton says it is the only certified Kosher restaurant in Columbia.
1624 Main: The building is on the north side of the alleyway. Originally the home to Middleton’s Agape offices and The Venue, the building has been renamed The Main Course and features a restaurant, bar and virtual bays that allow you to play virtual games of golf, soccer, baseball, football, and basketball using real equipment indoors. TopGolf has been folded into this building.
The Main Stage, on the second floor, is under the umbrella of The Main Course and is a space for live entertainment on the weekends. “People can come in and simply sit and eat,” says Middleton, “or they can enjoy the live entertainment.” The space is available to rent for business functions and small events
On the building’s third floor, Middleton is converting 6,000 square feet into a membership-only space featuring virtual golf and putting greens called The Players Club. It will feature 82 golf course simulations and a golf pro to teach or help members improve their game.
The fourth floor will hold Immersion. Middleton describes it as “an art space where people can come up for a fee and there will be 20 different artists that will be enhancing the spaces up there with all kinds of creative things. You can come and enjoy the art, but you can also immerse yourself in it, take Instagram pictures.” Portions of the space will be interactive. “We’re trying to make this a spot where you can come and play all day,” he said.
1621 Main (combined 1619 and 1623): The Grand is the 7-lane bowling alley and restaurant that was Middleton’s first large development. He says he bought the building because “every day, I would come down out of the (Cannon) parking deck and would look across over and see the old Army Navy store across the street and realize that building was just going to fall down one day. It was really just messing up the whole block, you know. So, I finally negotiated and bought the building and had no clue what I was going to do with it. I just knew it had to be renovated.
“For me, it wasn’t about I was looking for a spot for businesses, I really started looking at I love old stuff – I’ve been taking care of old people for the last 30 years of my life – and I wanted to be able to restore these buildings to be useful again.
“I wanted to create something that was different. I looked at most of the time when people go out, it’s a spot, a bar. They’re drinking and talking and socializing but there’s nothing much else for them to do. I didn’t want that to be the Five Points scene. Even in the Vista, there’s a lot of restaurants and a lot of things, but not a lot of things to do. And so I said that every one of our spaces will be centered around other things to do that aren’t just places to drink.
Built in 1865, Middleton says it is believed to be either the first or second building constructed after General Sherman’s burning of Columbia during the Civil War. The rear portion of the building had been empty for nearly 100 years, he says. The Grand got its name from an original piece of signage (The Grand Theater, circa 1905) found during renovations.
Some of Middleton’s family live in apartments above The Grand and there is one apartment that he rents out on AirBnB.
1631, 1635, and 1637 Main: These three buildings (formerly cigar shop, wig shop and furniture store) will be converted to become a microbrewery with a rooftop space on the back of the buildings. The design of the building is still in the planning stage and must go through the city’s approval process and the National Park Service for historic renovations. Middleton guesses that the entire process should take about 18 months.
1730 Main (and 1730 Sumter): Plans are to move the physicians’ office and Revive medical spa to the building across the street from City Hall. ‘We have physical therapists up there (at Revive), you can get botox there, IVs and all types of (treatments).”
Middleton wants to incorporate residential space wherever possible in the buildings that he owns. Places, he says, that are not just for college kids but for folks that may be a little older who are looking for a place to live and be entertained – a more urban lifestyle where you don’t have to drive anywhere.
Middleton points out that there are two parking decks behind the buildings in the 1600 block – Cannon Garage runs behind The Main Course, and Taylor Garage runs behind The Grand – that between them have 1,000 parking spots. Middleton has been working with the city for the past five years to try and work out a better system for parking – perhaps where business owners could validate parking.
Out on North Main: Middleton has purchased the old Stone Manufacturing property. Middleton says his father was a manager at a Belk department store for almost 50 years and he used to buy the products from Stone. The 62,000-square-foot building was once home to makers of elastic-waist boxer shorts for men – one of the first to do so after WWII, replacing cloth drawstring underwear.
Middleton wants to convert the property into a sports-centered brewery with indoor/outdoor basketball and volleyball courts and maybe a small soccer field. “We want people to come out and play. Play all day and have plenty of things to do, multiple kinds of food and venue space. Yes, we’ll make beer,” he says. “It should be a place to come and enjoy your family and friends.”
There’s about 4-and-a-half acres now and Middleton wants a little bit more to create a destination spot. His goal is “if we can create a spot where it’s going to be a destination spot, people will come, and I think everything else along Main Street will start to fill in between (downtown and North Main).”
Middleton says he would like to see an expansion of breweries in Columbia, making the city and surrounding area a brewery hotspot, possibly surpassing Asheville. (One of the names he is bouncing around for the North Main property is “Boxers & Brews.”)
“What’s exciting to me is walking through The Main Course or The Grand and see this group from work that has gotten together to come play a game and socialize and eat and enjoy each other. Part of what we need to look at in our work experience is how do you create an environment in your work that makes these things exciting and fun.”