Downtown office market

[Firefox]

Well I agree our new tallest needs to be on Sumter but maybe that rodeway in can go and a say 12 story tower can replace it and then another building the side of merdian should be built on sumter street but behind say slyvain bros building

[Spartan]

This is great news. I am glad that the office market will be able to sustain SCANA's departure... Columbia's office market is looking good. I wonder what this big announcement is?

Where is the Synergy Business Park?

That looks good firefox. The city needs to hire you

[krazeeboi]

This is great news. I am glad that the office market will be able to sustain SCANA's departure.

Yep, I knew that announcement would finally light a fire under the behinds of city leadership. It seems as though they've been more aggressive in promoting downtown as of late.

[waccamatt]

The new 200,000 square feet absorbed already has absorbed what will become available when SCANA moves. I'm still angry at them and would change service providers if I could.

[TheSuperPope]

^Especially since they want to have another rate hike.

Hopefully this year we will have a new tower announced of over 40 stories.

Or at least a few 12+ buildings fronting either sumter or Assembly (from the main side, hopefully where those d@mn surface lots are)

[krazeeboi]

To be honest, I don't really see many new midrises or highrises being proposed in the near future.

[Firefox]

To be honest, I don't really see many new midrises or highrises being proposed in the near future.

Well that might be true but i think none of us saw merdian in the market of the early 2000s

[krazeeboi]

Well that might be true but i think none of us saw merdian in the market of the early 2000s

We also didn't see any major tenants taking hundreds of employees out to the 'burbs either.

Any new midrise/highrise construction will depend on how good of a job the city does in getting the SCANA space absorbed. Sounds like it's off to a great start, but there's still a ways to go.

[g-man430]

To be honest, I don't really see many new midrises or highrises being proposed in the near future.

...and most of the highrises proposed if any probably won't get built either due to high construction costs from Hurricane Katrina. Just look at Greenville for an example.

[Firefox]

We also didn't see any major tenants taking hundreds of employees out to the 'burbs either.

Any new midrise/highrise construction will depend on how good of a job the city does in getting the SCANA space absorbed. Sounds like it's off to a great start, but there's still a ways to go.

Yeah but we did see alot of jobs close for example some when FU bought out wachovia and BOA got Fleet i mean hell BOA already has two buildings in columbia it has offices in that we know for sure WS and BOA you can't tell me that didn't affect the columbia market and these were all around the time of merdians constuction or its annocement, I think what we would see if we do see anything will be mix use there is no two ways about it.

[waccamatt]

I think the 200,000 square feet already absorbed this year is about equal to what SCANA leases at the Palmetto Center. If Richland County leases space out of an existing building I see a need for a new tower by 2010.

[krazeeboi]

I think Richland County would much rather go for a new building. Although it's an interesting idea, I'm not really sure exactly how feasible it would be for county operations to move into the Palmetto Center and have the building meet the county's needs. If the county council is saying that 362,000 sq ft is too much, then I highly doubt that they'd opt for the Palmetto Center, which undoubtedly has more than 362,000 sq ft. Plus it would be nice to see a new, modern county courthouse with LEED-certification (probably the first courthouse in the state to have it) and see the space in the Palmetto Center become absorbed.

There's also the possibility that one of the office buildings on Main north of Hampton could be converted to residential or mixed-use.

[waccamatt]

If I remember correctly, Palmetto Center has a little more than 300,000 square feet.

[krazeeboi]

^If that's the case, I stand corrected.

The county council doesn't really even have an idea of how many sq ft a new building should consist of.

[Spartan]

I'd like to see a break down of the square footage available along main street, including the large office towers. Anyone know where to get that kind of info?

[krazeeboi]

I really don't have a clue, besides doing random Google searches.

[Infinite1]

richland county GIS maybe?

[Infinite1]

palmetto center is actually 502,112 sq ft. on 20 floors per the GIS. If someone were very...uh um...motivated, they could ascertain all the sq footage numbers.

[Spartan]

Is that total sq ft or leasable sq ft? Thats about 25,000 sq ft per floor, which sounds about right.

That figure probably includes service areas and lobbies and what not.

[Infinite1]

that is the "heated square footage", so I'm sure it includes common and support areas. I'd bet 85% of that is leasable sq footage.

[Infinite1]

The 2006 year end market survey has some good news. After a sluggish start to 2006, the market caught fire towards the end of 2006 and they seem to think the momentum will continue into 2007. They do point out that efforts should start now to replace SCANA. When they leave it will result in 10% decrease in occupancy.

Link

[krazeeboi]

Well, the city's off to a great start already.

[Spartan]

How much space does SCANA occupy? It seems like its most -but not all- of the Southtrust building (or whatever they are calling it these days).

[waccamatt]

SCANA isn't in the Capitol Center (old Southtrust) at all; they are located in the Palmetto Center and I think they occupy somewhere around 300,000 square feet.

[Spartan]

Youre right. I keep getting my buildings mixed up. 300k sq ft isn't too bad. I don't think that will affect the market too much, particularly if they have new occupants ligned up, and IMO there is no reason not to do this since we know its coming.