By admin 
For the past decade, the University of South Carolina’s development arm has steadily acquired properties along a drab stretch of South Main Street with the goal of transforming the tract into a veritable “town and gown” district where students, State House staff and the wider Columbia community can shop, grab a bite to eat and even lay down their heads.
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While progress has been slow, a recent deal between the USC Development Foundation and the last remaining holdout on one largely vacant block of South Main Street could mark a turning point in the revitalization process.
The foundation, which acts as USC’s private real estate arm, has agreed to transfer a property at the corner of College and Main streets to the South Carolina Baptist Convention in exchange for a midblock property critical to USC’s development plans.
Once finalized, the swap will give the foundation ownership of an uninterrupted swath of land along Main Street that has eluded it for years, and allow the university to begin realizing its vision for the area.
“If you look at the layout of that block currently, they are right in the middle of the block,” said R. Jason Caskey, president and CEO of USC’s Development Foundation. “So for us to assemble the necessary property for a potential future development, it was very beneficial to us to have at least the majority of their property.”
The parties have been discussing a real estate deal for several years, Caskey said, but only recently reached an agreement to swap parcels. He credited the Baptists for “agreeing to pick up and move to the corner,” despite being “very comfortable” in their existing building.
“They were really just trying to help us with the master plan work we were doing for the university,” said Caskey, who described the transaction as a “win-win for both parties.”
Per the terms of the deal, the foundation will purchase the Baptists’ single-story property at 817 Main St., home of the Baptist Collegiate Ministry, and transfer the group an adjacent parcel it owns at the corner of College and Main.
The Baptists plan to demolish the vacant building on their new property, which most recently housed a Domino’s Pizza, and construct a three-story mixed-use building in its place.
Caskey declined to disclose how much the foundation agreed to pay the Baptists for their property, but said the group would use the proceeds of the sale for its demolition and construction costs.
Bryant Sims, the South Carolina Baptist Convention’s chief operations officer, confirmed via email that the group had made plans to swap properties with USC, but declined to share specifics of the deal at this time.
“We look forward to expanding our capacity to serve students and remain committed to a vibrant campus ministry for many years to come,” Sims said in a statement.
A proposal for the demolition and replacement of the former Domino’s, located at 825 Main St., is set to go before Columbia’s Urban Design Review Commission on Wednesday.
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If approved, Caskey said the project would likely get underway in the next several weeks and take about 10 months to complete.
“We’re shooting for June 2027,” he said.
The Baptists’ new building will include first-floor office and event space, two second-story apartment units and a rooftop patio, according to a proposal submitted by Garvin Design Group, a Columbia-based architecture and design firm the Development Foundation hired for the project with input from the S.C. Baptist Convention.
The Baptist Collegiate Ministry’s new corner property will have 13 surface parking spaces and will add another 25 spaces after their current building is demolished, the proposal states.
Caskey said he hopes to begin demolition of the Baptists’ existing property within 60 days of their new building’s completion.
The university has engaged in high-level discussions about developing their soon-to-be contiguous portion of the 800 block of South Main, but doesn’t have any firm plans yet, officials said.
Broadly, the university is looking at a mixed-use development with retail at ground level and market rate housing above it, USC architect Derek Gruner told The State Media Co. earlier this year.
The concept, he said, is to create an area that is student-focused, but still attractive to city residents.
“The idea here with Main Street is to not make it quite so university-centric, but to make this a place that the citizens of Columbia might come and shop here or the people who work on the State House grounds walk down to Main Street and they eat in the restaurants,” Gruner said. “So it’s really what you’d call a town-gown environment.”
One preliminary proposal calls for moving many of the retail services found in USC’s student union to that block of South Main.
Exporting those services, which include a campus bookstore/spirit shop, hair salon, post office, print shop, credit union and retail dining, would revitalize the moribund block while simultaneously creating space in the Russell House, which was recently approved for a renovation and expansion.
“Final decisions on what could go there are a ways away,” USC spokesman Jeff Stensland said Monday via text, “but securing that property will make it possible to do a substantial project that benefits students and the greater community.”
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