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The University of South Carolina is taking a “bold step forward” in its redevelopment of Main Street, just south of the state capitol complex.
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The Board of Trustees last month approved hiring an architect and construction manager for the schematic design phase of a planned multiuse development between Main and Sumter streets, where the university’s Development Foundation has been acquiring properties piecemeal for the past couple years.
The new project, proposed in USC’s 2024 master plan and sketched out further in a recent feasibility study, would consolidate a roughly 2.5-acre tract of land owned separately by the university, its foundation and the state of South Carolina to create a sprawling mixed-use development spanning the better part of a city block.
The planned development, located kitty-corner to another university project on the 800 block of Main Street, would combine retail, housing, parking, an interior courtyard and possibly some administrative or academic space, school officials said.
The James F. Byrnes Building at 901 Sumter St., which houses USC’s official campus store and multiple student service-related offices, would be demolished as part of the project, university spokesman Jeff Stensland said.
USC’s private real estate arm has been working for at least the past two years to acquire properties in the “Byrnes Block,” in furtherance of its planned development.
In October 2024, the Development Foundation purchased a small parcel at the corner of Main and College streets, where the Hunter-Gatherer Brewery was once located, and a month later it closed on a slender parcel in the center of College Street that houses Cool Beans Coffee Co.
While the foundation remains in discussions to acquire additional properties that could expand the development’s footprint, USC already controls enough of the block to move forward with preliminary designs.
The university has budgeted $5 million for the predesign phase, which will confirm the site’s housing capacity, provide architectural suggestions and deliver a cost estimate to inform future development, officials said.
University architect Derek Gruner told the Board of Trustees in August that he envisioned the development having a mix of ground-level retail — both student-focused and the “more upper scale town-gown” variety — with roughly 700 student beds and about half as many market rate apartment-style beds above it.
The site would also contain a “significant” parking structure that could accommodate roughly 1,200 vehicles, he said.
Because the multistory development would overlook the historic Horseshoe to the east, Gruner said the university would be “very thoughtful” about the building’s height.
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Just over a decade ago, USC helped shut down a developer-proposed student tower on South Main Street after its alumni association argued the 15-story high-rise would cast a “nasty shadow” over the Horseshoe.
Former Main Street Domino’s comes down
The university’s goal of transforming South Main Street into a bustling “town and gown” district began taking shape this week, when crews knocked down the old Domino’s Pizza building at the corner of Main and College streets, diagonally across from the Byrnes Block.
The property, which is owned by the USC Development Foundation, had been vacant for about a year when it was reduced to rubble Monday in what Gruner described as “the first step in this vision for Main Street.”
The demolition sets in motion the university’s plans for an ambitious mixed-use development on the 800 block of Main Street, where it envisions multiple stories of market rate housing located above student-oriented retail.
“You can’t really exaggerate the impact that’s going to have on our campus in the coming years,” Gruner told the board last month when discussing the project.
Once the debris is hauled away, construction will begin on a new Baptist Collegiate Ministry building that’s being developed as part of a land swap agreement reached earlier this year between the South Carolina Baptist Convention and the USC Development Foundation.
As part of the deal, the foundation agreed to transfer the former Domino’s property to the Baptists in exchange for a midblock parcel that houses the Baptists’ current collegiate ministry.
Once the new Baptist facility is complete, the foundation plans to tear down their current building and incorporate the land into its mixed-use development.
The university has yet to announce any firm plans for the development, but is aiming to create a student-focused area that is still attractive to city residents.
“Final decisions on what could go there are a ways away,” Stensland told The State in July, “but securing that property will make it possible to do a substantial project that benefits students and the greater community.”
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