Columbia’s Future for Sale: Zoning Board Approves Core Properties Downtown Proposal
- CUBNSC
- May 2
- 4 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
By Javar Juarez| Op-ed
On May 1, 2025, the City of Columbia’s Zoning Board of Appeals voted unanimously in favor of a special exception request by Core Properties, clearing the way for a $225 million private dormitory complex to rise in the heart of downtown. Despite well-documented community opposition, the board disregarded public comments submitted by those unable to attend the meeting, demonstrating once again how Columbia’s political machinery continues to favor corporations over citizens.
The approved project, spearheaded by CS Acquisition Vehicle, LLC, will span 2.62 acres at the intersection of Assembly and Washington Streets, adjacent to the two existing towers between Hampton and Washington. The development—promoted under the guise of progress—sits on what was once the Washington Historic District, a historically Black community erased by decades of redlining, disinvestment, and gentrification. Of that once-vibrant neighborhood, only one original structure remains.
In the last six years, more than 7,000 Black residents have been displaced from Columbia. That’s a 20% loss in the city’s Black voting bloc—an erosion of not only cultural presence but political power. This new dormitory project not only deepens that displacement but symbolizes the city's continued prioritization of short-term investment over long-term community integrity.
Columbia’s Downtown Activity Center (DAC) zoning district was created to support high-density, mixed-use development that promotes commerce, civic life, and residential diversity. However, the Core Properties project is neither mixed-use nor diverse. A private, single-use dormitory introduces a monoculture that will serve a narrow and transient student demographic—one that is 70% white, while Black enrollment at USC stands at just 10%.
These student-centric projects do little to stimulate the broader economy. USC students often lack the disposable income and civic engagement necessary to support a premium downtown marketplace. Their presence has already transformed neighborhoods like Five Points and the Vista District into nightlife zones marked by public disorder, over-policing, and disrespect toward local service workers—especially Black workers.
Columbia’s Vision 2036 commits to an inclusive and balanced city: “We are proud of our soul, our unique character, our diversity, and our human potential. We stand as a city for all people.” But actions speak louder than branding language. When a zoning board refuses to acknowledge public concerns and facilitates more student housing while ignoring the urgent need for affordable housing for families, seniors, and working professionals, the gap between promise and practice becomes undeniable.
At the May 1 meeting, Core Properties representatives announced that the new superblock development will include approximately 1,500 total parking spaces—750 of which are allocated to serve the two existing towers on Main Street between Hampton and Washington. The remainder will be dedicated to the new residential units. While the developers cited a need to address a downtown parking crisis, this justification feels tone-deaf in a city grappling more urgently with a housing crisis than a shortage of parking. A city quickly becoming known as a racial donut. With its core becoming more white and less diverse and its outskirts becoming more marginalized and Black.
According to attorney Leighton Lord, representing Core Properties, the project will include both private student housing and “a very big market-rate component for young professionals.” The 27-story section, 11 of which are parking, will be designated for market-rate housing, while the adjacent 22-story section will serve as private dormitories. Additionally, the development will feature a retail component on Main Street. The developer, Austin Pagnotta of Chicago-based Core Properties, noted that his company owns over 40 properties nationwide and manages approximately 40,000 leases—an indicator of the growing national corporate presence now reshaping Columbia’s downtown core.
Neighborhood leaders are now mobilizing to convene urgent community meetings focused on developing strategies to halt the unchecked expansion of the University of South Carolina’s development footprint—a force that continues to displace residents and erode the cultural fabric of historic neighborhoods like Lower Waverly. These discussions also aim to address the growing influence of developers like Core Properties, whose business model seeks to capitalize on the student population while offering little in return to the broader community.
The future of Columbia should not be sold to the highest bidder. It is time for residents to take a long, hard look at what kind of city we are becoming. We must ask difficult but necessary questions:
Do we really want a downtown dominated by transient student populations?
Do we accept a vision of progress that leaves families and long-time residents behind?
Do we want a city that caters to the ambitions of a powerful university while ignoring the basic needs of its most vulnerable citizens?
This moment demands more than protest—it demands accountability. If our elected and appointed officials will not stand for equity, history, and sustainability, then it falls on the people to make those values unavoidable.
Columbia can still be a city for all—but not if we continue down this path.
Carolina News & Reporter. A Historically Black Area in Columbia Is Changing and Residents Question Why. University of South Carolina, 2023. https://carolinanewsandreporter.cic.sc.edu/a-historically-black-area-in-columbia-is-changing-and-residents-question-why
The GroundTruth Project. From High Cotton to Dead End: What One South Carolina Project Teaches Us About Public Housing. 2021. https://thegroundtruthproject.org/from-high-cotton-to-dead-end-what-one-south-carolina-project-teaches-us-about-public-housing
Georgetown Climate Center. Greauxing Resilience at Home: Columbia, SC. 2022. https://www.georgetownclimate.org/files/Louisiana%20Regional%20Vision/Greauxing_Resilience_Columbia.pdf
McKinney, Kyra. Heirs’ Property and the Racial Wealth Gap: Exploring the Relationship Between Black Homeownership and Generational Wealth in the American South. Occidental College, 2022. https://www.oxy.edu/sites/default/files/McKinney_UEP%20Comps.pdf
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