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I'm glad you flagged the number, I hadn't noticed. For comparison, the Hilton in the Vista has 222 rooms. Of course it's hard to compare the hotels exactly since I believe the Hilton has a decent amount of meeting space, but either way the proposed hotel is pretty sizeable.
I really wish the Hilton would've had 350-400 rooms to truly serve as an anchor hotel for the convention center but a 280-room hotel at the Kline site will definitely have presence. The brand will most likely be one that's not already present in Columbia I'm thinking; a Westin would be good. A 9-story, 294-room Westin opened last year I believe in downtown Birmingham. A smaller Westin at 6 stories and 180 rooms is planned for downtown Greensboro and that development was also dependent on parking. It will be built atop a 6-story, 850-space public parking structure.
City innovation 11th annual cities classifications & city rankings from the Innovation Cities™ Index.
This city rankings includes tech, smart, startups and other aspects of a good city to live, work and play based on economic opportunity for innovators. The Innovation Cities™ Indexes measure each cities potential as an innovation economy at the current time, since 2007.
Columbia ranked 72nd (of 118 metros) in the US. For comparison purposes, here are how other regional cities ranked:
9: Atlanta
26: Raleigh/Durham
31: Nashville
36: Memphis
37: Richmond
42: Charlotte
45: Tallahassee
47: New Orleans
55: Jacksonville
59: Norfolk/VA Beach
66: Charleston
71: Birmingham
74: Savannah
75: Greensboro
76: Louisville
77: Baton Rouge
78: Little Rock
85: Knoxville
95: Winston-Salem
96: Augusta
97: Montgomery
98: Chattanooga
99: Jackson
100: Lexington
112: Greenville
As with all rankings, this one isn't without its criticisms with one of the main ones being that this one includes too many indicators--162 to be exact--and several seem to be arbitrary or irrelevant when it comes to innovation, so take it for what it's worth. I will say that for Columbia, this ranking does corroborate what I've been saying about its overall performance in the region at the moment: towards the middle of the pack.
City innovation 11th annual cities classifications & city rankings from the Innovation Citiesâ„¢ Index.
This city rankings includes tech, smart, startups and other aspects of a good city to live, work and play based on economic opportunity for innovators. The Innovation Citiesâ„¢ Indexes measure each cities potential as an innovation economy at the current time, since 2007.
Columbia ranked 72nd (of 118 metros) in the US. For comparison purposes, here are how other regional cities ranked:
9: Atlanta
26: Raleigh/Durham
31: Nashville
36: Memphis
37: Richmond
42: Charlotte
45: Tallahassee
47: New Orleans
55: Jacksonville
59: Norfolk/VA Beach
66: Charleston
71: Birmingham
74: Savannah
75: Greensboro
76: Louisville
77: Baton Rouge
78: Little Rock
85: Knoxville
95: Winston-Salem
96: Augusta
97: Montgomery
98: Chattanooga
99: Jackson
100: Lexington
112: Greenville
As with all rankings, this one isn't without its criticisms with one of the main ones being that this one includes too many indicators--162 to be exact--and several seem to be arbitrary or irrelevant when it comes to innovation, so take it for what it's worth. I will say that for Columbia, this ranking does corroborate what I've been saying about its overall performance in the region at the moment: towards the middle of the pack.
Jackson MS? Ugh.. I assume Lexington is Kentucky not SC
There’s about to be a ton of development downtown, plus that remodel of the 15-story building into a hotel on Washington street near main. And the remodel on Gervais. Lots!
As a disclaimer my original post was about needing tax credits to create development while other cites did not need it, along with more developments that needed cranes.
As a disclaimer my original post was about needing tax credits to create development while other cites did not need it, along with more developments that needed cranes.
To be fair, the tax credits were used to spur a particular kind of development (private student housing) within the city proper; up until that point, they were being built just outside city limits (e.g. near Williams-Brice, along Shop Rd) where property taxes are cheaper. And that led to extending tax credits to non-student residential developments because what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Other cities did not need this because 1) they don't have a huge university in their urban cores with swelling enrollment which necessitates private student housing and 2) they don't have tax bases that are roughly equivalent to cities half their sizes due to an overwhelming amount of tax-exempt properties within their municipal borders, which is why property taxes are as high as they are, thereby triggering the 'need' for tax credits to get development rolling on private student housing to begin with--and that led to the other developers with their hands out also.
Now I don't believe that the city needed to extend tax credits to get those new, large-scale residential developments (both student and non-student) rolling; they would have eventually been built downtown but not nearly as soon. The only other option would have been to lower property tax rates to make them more competitive with the county's, and I'm more than certain that the school districts would NOT have gone along with that for starters.
I really wish the Hilton would've had 350-400 rooms to truly serve as an anchor hotel for the convention center but a 280-room hotel at the Kline site will definitely have presence. The brand will most likely be one that's not already present in Columbia I'm thinking; a Westin would be good. A 9-story, 294-room Westin opened last year I believe in downtown Birmingham. A smaller Westin at 6 stories and 180 rooms is planned for downtown Greensboro and that development was also dependent on parking. It will be built atop a 6-story, 850-space public parking structure.
Looks like it says it is an A.C. Marriott hotel on the sketch...
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