COLUMBIA, S.C. — The future of downtown Columbia is what the city is trying to determine as it kicks off the Downtown Columbia Strategic Planning Process. Starting Tuesday morning at 11 a.m., you can give input to influence the vision for the area.
The Downtown Columbia Master Plan has four goals: to create a community driven vision for downtown, to establish priorities for public policy and investment, to protect the unique character of the historic urban area and to form the basis for design guidelines to help shape public spaces.
“This is the sort of place that you would enjoy walking around,” Lake Norman resident Linda Linfoot said about the area.
Linfoot and her friend Brenda Rogers spent the afternoon walking around, visiting the city after a trip to the zoo.
“It’s an old-fashioned town. And I'm sorry but I think that is so much nicer. And maybe it's because I'm getting older myself, but I think it's so much nicer than all these modern architectural things,” Linfoot shared. “I look here, I see the Christmas lights that are still up, I see these little boutiques. That to me is much more friendly than any of the new modern lots of glass type things.”
Right now, the city is trying to determine its vision for the future through developing the Downtown Columbia Strategic Plan and Design Guidelines.
“In the past it was just for people to go to work, but now downtown is much more than that,” Main Street District President and CEO Matt Kennell explained. “And we're trying to adapt and change, you know, with the new market and the new customers that we have downtown.”
The Main Street District is what Kennell refers to as “the heart of Columbia's downtown,” encompassing the area from Assembly and Marion Street and Gervais and Elmwood. Kennell says the district — and others — are partnering with other downtown districts and the city of Columbia to work on this strategic master plan.
“We're really trying to connect now. I think you'll hear that word a lot between The Vista and BullStreet and North Main Street and South Main Street and Five Points,” Kennell detailed. “I think we're all seeing how by working together, you know, the whole downtown is becoming much stronger, and people want to be able to easily get back and forth between all those districts.”
The city is in the initial phase of the 10-month process. At this point, it’s looking for feedback from residents like Christopher Brown.
“I've been here since you know high school middle school so I can tell you everything that's happened since then. So it's gotten a lot better but you know, just a few more additions here…we’re moving on the right track,” Columbia resident Christopher Brown shared. “There's a lot of events going on. It's gotten a lot better. I think there's a little more activity that we can have here but we always have something like downtown on Main Street. So we have the festivals and the Soda City Market on Saturday, so that's pretty good.”
It’s an idea that University of South Carolina senior Grace Wilson agrees with.
“I hope to see more events like soda city that are interactive and people come out, they can bring their kids, their dogs,” Wilson, who works downtown at Miss Cocky Boutique, said. “It's something that everyone can enjoy. I think those are amazing.”
Another topic that both Wilson and Brown think the city should focus on is safety.
“It's no fun if you’re not safe in the place that you are,” Brown explained. “So yeah, I definitely look for safety. That's one of my key things is being safe where I'm at.”
Safety is one of the topics the city is asking for feedback on in an online survey, which residents like Wilson can fill out.
“One thing that I think that the City of Columbia lacks is the parking aspect. Like for Soda City [Market] and stuff, it’s very hard to get down here,” Wilson added. “Especially if you're, like, if you're a young girl, you don't want to park your car a mile away walk by yourself especially in a downtown location.”
Hearing insight from residents is important, Kennell says.
“We're seeing many more people now that call downtown home,” Kennell elaborated. “So the more we can listen to the people that live here and what they want and create a downtown for them. I think more people will move into the area and then we'll have more shops and more restaurants and more public spaces and all those things that people want.”
Based on the feedback that city leaders are hearing so far, Kennell says the future of downtown Columbia will likely focus on making the area more accessible to walkers and bicyclists.
“I think people now really appreciate the pedestrian and bicycles experience. People are much more likely to use human power maybe than they would have used many years ago. Before, people would literally drive from one parking garage to the next when they were coming downtown. So we want it more walkable, more bikeable and also more of a place for families,” Kennell shared. “People really want to connect with each other. We want to make it more of a better place for downtown living, better amenities for students and other people that live downtown. And, you know, to continue to grow and really expand in all directions, including to the river so there's a lot of discussion about that right now.”
Despite the evolution, Kennell says preserving Columbia's historic core is a priority.
“I think preserving the core and the history of the area is critical,” Kennell shared. “I mean, that's what makes us unique. That's what makes Columbia Columbia and different from anywhere else. And I think that to attract new development, you have to create that sense of place that can only happen by having that historic core and the character of the area. So in order to attract new development, you have to celebrate the old development and hopefully we can do both of those.”
It’s a balance that Owen Dickson, whose family has owned Dickson Brothers Shoe Repair for five generations, says is important.
“There's businesses like King’s Jewelers, Mast General and obviously this shop as well has all been here for a pretty long time,” Dickson said. “I think preserving that keeps the kind of life and the history that we have of this block. I also just think that bringing in new things but also keeping the rustic old look also just kind of keeps it classy.”
Columbia resident Paul Diemer was the superintendent for many of the buildings in the same block.
“It was amazing,” Diemer shared about working on the historic-looking storefronts. “We worked on Mast [General] store first and once that was done it brought more people in. I always had a saying: ‘We need to put more feet on the street.”
Diemer says hearing that the city is working to further that mission is encouraging.
“I know now we have some buses, I think, to take people around, but getting that connectivity is important,” Diemer said. “Especially on the weekends: Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday when games are going on and there's a lot going on at the college.”
The city says this planning process is kicking off now because of how much the city has changed since the last master plans were developed.
It has been 25 years since the adoption of the City Center Master Plan and more than 15 years since the adoption of the Innovista Master Plan,” the City of Columbia explained in an email. “In the years since these plans were adopted, much has changed: major infrastructure projects have been completed or are underway, thousands of housing units have been built, the City adopted a new Unified Development Ordinance and Comprehensive Plan (Columbia Compass), the COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the way people use downtowns, and lastly, transportation trends have created new shared and electric alternatives.”
“The old plan 25 years ago kind of was focused heavily on the infrastructure and new sidewalks and lighting and trees and things to make the area more of a destination,” Kennell explained. “It's worked very well and I think now the new plan is kind of looking to the next phase of that evolution of the downtown.”
If you’d like to give city officials feedback in person, there are two mobile workshops happening on Tuesday. You can visit the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center from 11 .a.m to 1:30 p.m. or the Arsenal Hill Center from 4 to 6:30 p.m.
You can also submit feedback through this online survey open through the end of April.