IDA Downtown of the Month - May 2003
May 18, 2003
Columbia, SC - from www.ida-downtown.org

For decades Columbia, South Carolina has seen its downtown struggle. Just less than two years ago, many thought downtown was headed for even more dismal times. Downtown Columbia had lost the Fleet Mortgage headquarters when Washington Mutual acquired the company and decided to close the corporate office operations in Columbia. Other major downtown employers like SCANA and Wilbur Smith Associates seemed to be considering a relocation of their downtown offices. Meanwhile, downtown retail merchants and restaurants were hanging on by the skin of their teeth while downtown Columbia as a whole was searching for its own unique identity.

Today downtown Columbia is being rebuilt, thanks to the downtown property owners and City Center Partnership. Formed in January 2002, City Center Partnership's challenge was to manage and direct South Carolina's first business improvement district (BID) in downtown Columbia. And in just 16 months, there is a significant amount of achievement.

Retaining existing downtown businesses and recruiting new ones was a stated goal. With an eye toward achieving this goal, City Center Partnership sought to help fill vacancies in commercial buildings, make downtown a cleaner, safer, and better maintained area, and draw a substantial amount of visitors and people from the community to downtown. Along the way, the partnership was instrumental in helping to attract a multi-million dollar development project for a new 350,000 square feet, 17-story commercial high-rise building.

A Cleaner and Safer Downtown
This past June, a new downtown clean and safety program was formed and City Center Partnership launched its new Hospitality Team--The Downtown Clean & Safety Teams. The Hospitality Team members are highly visible, dressed in bright gold shirts with magnolia emblems proclaiming Columbia as "The Capital of Southern Hospitality." The Downtown Safety Guides consist of bike and foot patrols 7 days/week, day and evening hours. The guides are charged with giving public assistance and directions as well as showing a highly visible presence in the 36-block downtown BID. The Downtown Clean Team removes debris and graffiti from sidewalks and alleyways, and solves other maintenance issues, including landscaping and planting seasonal flowers. The Clean Team is also in charge of maintaining a newly implemented Planter Program, which includes large planters placed along the center of the BID consisting of Lantana, Black-Eyed Susan, Pansies, Tea Olive, and other southern variations. Since the Hospitality Team hit the streets, the crime rate has gone down nearly 50%.