What’s being built on Columbia’s Harbison? A major restaurant chain is coming

A well-known national chain that is famed for its Chinese food is building a new location along a bustling Midlands commercial corridor.

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Panda Express, which has Asian cuisine restaurants nationwide, is bringing a new location to 225 Harbison Blvd. The city of Columbia’s Planning Commission approved plans for the restaurant project earlier this year, and construction elements of the project have been detailed in city building permit records this summer.

The Panda Express will be just west of the Harbison Center shopping complex that is home to a Trader Joe’s grocery store, 2nd & Charles bookstore, First Watch brunch spot and other businesses. There is an Express Oil Change business next door to where the Panda Express will be. The restaurant will be roughly a mile west of Interstate 26.

An opening date for the Panda Express along Harbison has not been publicly announced. Construction remained ongoing when a reporter rode by on Monday.

Panda Express was founded in 1983, according to its website. It has more than 2,600 stores and 47,000 employees. The restaurant carries a number of well-known Chinese and Asian dishes, perhaps most notably the orange chicken, which it promotes as its signature offering.

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There are a handful of Panda Express locations currently in the Midlands, including one that debuted in Lexington’s Red Bank area at the Platt Springs Crossing development in 2025.

The Harbison district northwest of downtown Columbia continues to be one of the Midlands busiest retail areas, filled with shops, big box stores, restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, the Columbiana Centre mall and more.

Roughly 20,000 cars per day travel down the stretch of Harbison Boulevard where the Panda Express is planned, per state Department of Transportation data.

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