COLUMBIA, S.C. — The City of Columbia is looking to enhance the downtown area by creating a new strategic plan and city leadership is seeking community input.
It has been 25 years since the city last looked at the overall character of the downtown area. The last city plan was called the City Center Master Plan, and it helped create the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center, CanalSide and implemented the plan for the Three Rivers Greenway.
The goals of the new strategic plan the city is creating would establish a vision for the character and unique urban core of downtown while also creating priorities for public policy and investment and design guidelines in the downtown area.
To hear as many community needs as possible, the city has already created an online survey to get input for what the community wants to see in the downtown area in the future.
For those with more questions about this planning process, the City of Columbia will host a series of in-person mobile workshops starting on April 23, at 11 a.m. at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center and ending in mid-May.
Through these mobile workshops, the city hopes to gauge community interest and note any resident needs in the downtown area including infrastructure, housing, and the overall scene.
The planning and community engagement process will take approximately 10 months to complete. City of Columbia leadership says they will present the plan to the public for additional feedback and final drafts will be forwarded to City Council for adoption.
