Current News Releases
July 18, 2008
A more urban future for growing greenway
Reprinted with permisson from The State
By JEFF WILKINSON jwilkinson@thestate.com
The Three Rivers Greenway is opening a new phase in its development.
Up to now, the greenway’s parks have been geared toward pure recreation: Lovely paths along the rivers’ edge for hikers and bikers.
But new sections being built or planned on the Columbia side of the river have a more urban feel-- hardscapes to a great degree intended to be even larger economic magnets.
Taxpayers are being asked to kick in another $14 million to build these parks, and $77 million for a grand, 74-acre regional waterfront park that will anchor USC’s Innovista research campus.
“We want to keep going forward,” said John McArthur, incoming River Alliance chairman. “We need to keep adding to the greenway to keep the momentum going.”
The new sections include:
- The $4.5 million Esplanade at CanalSide and the $10 million CanalFront at EdVenture Children’s Museum. Both are being built by Columbia.
- The Saluda Riverwalk, a $6.3 million Columbia city park planned for the Saluda riverfront around Riverbanks Zoo that will encompass the Mill Race Rapids-- commonly called “the rocks.”
- A $1 million bridge connected to the I-20/I-126 exit ramp linking the Saluda riverwalk with Lexington County. The bridge will be funded by a federal grant, West Columbia and Columbia.
- And the Congaree Regional Waterfront Park-- expected to be the crown jewel of USC’s Innovista research campus.
The waterfront park was designed by Sasaki and Associates, the Boston-based firm that also planned Innovista.
The park will be highly landscaped, with a restored Columbia Canal, an amphitheater, descending terraces from USC’s new baseball stadium and hardened riverbanks in many places.
Critics have called the park too “monumental,” unnatural and too expensive.
But Bill Boyd, chairman of the Waterfront Steering Committee, a regional group raising park funds, said it will be the linchpin of not only the park system, but of all of downtown.
The park also will be some time in coming.
“This is a 10- or 15-year project,” said Boyd, partner in the law firm Haynesworth Sinkler Boyd. “It’s not going to happen overnight.”
USC and the state’s congressional delegation are working to lock in funding in from the U.S. Corps of Engineers through the Water Resources Development Act and other sources.
Of the $77 million needed, the waterfront committee has $500,000 in hand for engineering from federal transportation funds. And the delegation has requested $29 million in water resources money.
“The question is whether they are going to have (a Water Resources Act bill) this year,” Boyd said. “We hope they will.”
Columbia, Richland County and USC also would have to unite to fund much of the infrastructure to link the park to the city -- such as extending Williams Street along the bluff top and linking it with Greene Street.
A special tax district tapping new construction in Innovista could be a mechanism, but the city and county are still fighting over proceeds from a previous TIF, which spawned the greenway in the first place.
“TIF has been a bad word recently,” Boyd said. “But we’ve actually gotten some fairly positive response from this. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the increase in value (of land and property) around this project.”
LINKING THE GREENWAY
Several other developments are also linked to the greenway. The largest is CanalSide, a 750-unit residential development being built on the old CCI prison site on the Columbia Canal.
CanalSide even has its own section of greenway, which is under construction.
It’s called the Esplanade, and it is a broad walkway on a bluff overlooking the canal.
Although isolated, it is considered part of the greenway and is connected to the rest of the park by a trail that runs through the development and past the Columbia water plant.
Similar links also could be built to other large sites now ripe for development, such as the Kline Steel property at Gervais and Huger streets and the adjacent SCANA bus barn property.
A park connector would make those already high-profile properties even more valuable.
However, a planned link of the Esplanade and CanalFront -- a pavilion and plaza connected to EdVenture -- is not being built. Planners are having trouble finding a way over, around or under Jarvis Klapman Bridge or busy Hampton Street.
Money is also an issue.
CanalFront, essentially phase two of EdVenture, has been redesigned three times and its projected cost has swelled from $7 million to $10 million.
SALUDA RIVERWALK DELAYED
The rising cost of CanalFront has had a ripple effect on other planned sections of the greenway.
Columbia has dropped plans for a bridge over the confluence of the Saluda and Broad rivers -- called Three Rivers Islands Crossing -- because of a lack of funds. But River Alliance officials haven’t given up on one day building rock-hopping bridges or a suspension bridge to link up the greenway across the confluence.
Also, the city has not yet identified all of the money to build the Saluda Riverwalk project at the zoo.
Tough land negotiations with the Jordan family, which owns much of the stretch of the riverbank north of the zoo, also have slowed that project.
The stretch around the zoo from the confluence of the Broad and Saluda rivers north to I-20 is one of the most heavily used and lawless areas of the river.
Hundreds of people gather daily in the summer to tube, sun and party. But crime is a problem, as are encampments of homeless people.
When the land is finally transferred to the city and the park is built, officials hope police will shut down the shanty towns and clamp down on illegal behavior.
The River Alliance’s McArthur, a shareholder in law firm Haynesworth Sinkler Boyd, said the Saluda Riverwalk and a bridge over the confluence are priorities.
“Someone who lives on Gervais Street would be able to walk to the zoo. And it’s something the two counties and three cities can rally around.”
McArthur also hopes the new park section will bring new people to the river.
“It’s a real gem,” he said. “But we need more people in the Midlands to come down and discover it.”
