COLUMBIA, N.C. — A new student housing complex could be heading near the Blossom Street Bridge.
On Thursday, members of Columbia's Board of Zoning Appeals heard an argument to rezone a section of land at the corner of Huger and Blossom streets. Currently, that area is zoned to have a maximum of 150 beds per acre, but developers are asking to increase that number to 250 beds per acre.
Leighton Lord with Nexsen Pruet explained that the plan is to put a student housing complex on the street that could house close to 1000 occupants, a financial burden that would only make sense if they could rent out that high number of rooms.
"There is a lot of infrastructure that needs to happen to make this site work. There's a four-foot storm drain underground that needs to be relocated, there's a sewer line that needs to be relocated and there's a gas station on the site that needs to be remediated," Lord said. "Those are all things that my client, Subtext is going to have to incur to make this work."
This new building would sit diagonally from the University of South Carolina baseball stadium on Wheat Street and across from a similar student housing complex. Despite developers' interest, some neighbors have concerns. Bob Guild, who lives in the Granby neighborhood, said the increase in residents could mean more traffic.
"Five hundred more cars at least - that's the garage - dumping onto the Wheat and Huger or the Williams and Blossom intersection," Guild said. "They're already substantially impaired, I can testify to that."
At Thursday's meeting, the board decided to defer development talks for a month while the traffic study is being conducted and give time for developers and neighbors to discuss ideas. The next meet of the board of appeals is March 2.