Five Points

[krazeeboi]

The city owns an office building at 2126 Devine St., and is looking for someone to take it and move it off the lot, which it plans to use for surface parking for Five Points. The building was built in 1930 as an apartment building and has been remodeled for office use.

They wouldn't need to do that if they had gone ahead with the original mixed-use structure at the Kenny's site, which would have included a garage.

[Spartan]

Great so Five Points is going to be out one mixed-use building and up one parking lot. Fan-freaking-tastic.

[BrasilnSC]

Edited October 22, 2010 by BrasilnSC

[growingup15]

Beautiful

[CorgiMatt]

A picture can't begin to do it justice. It looks great! It's a beautiful piece of public art.

[Spartan]

It takes skill to make a fast food restaurant look classy. Good job. That Chik-fil-a looks a million times better than the old Hardees.

[GvilleSC]

It takes skill to make a fast food restaurant look classy.

Isn't that the standard design?

[Spartan]

It probably is fairly standard. I'm seem to recall having that discussion on here somewhere. It has more outdoor seating than the Chik-fil-a's I'm familiar with though.

[GvilleSC]

It probably is fairly standard. I'm seem to recall having that discussion on here somewhere. It has more outdoor seating than the Chik-fil-a's I'm familiar with though.

It's the same layout and design as Clemson's on 123. It's odd to compare a car-choked location and an 'urban village' location. Could be anywhere, USA.

[CorgiMatt]

They couldn't build on the corner on that lot in Five Points because of a big underground pipe corridor that runs through there, thus the seating on the corner to give it as much of an urban feel as possible.

[Spartan]

I think it's fair to say that Chik-fil-a seems to grasp the concept of better-designed buildings relative to the other fast food places (again, of the ones I am familiar with). The fact that it could be anywhere USA is certainly relevant in that it perpetuates the whole "generica" concept, and contributes relatively little to the uniqueness of Five Points. However, it's also about context. When you have a place like this that is designed to make pedestrians more comfortable, and it is located in a village setting, it's going to tend to be used like the other buildings around it- (eg: more pedestrian traffic, relative to a suburban location).

The opposite is also true. If you could take a 1920's era commercial building and put it a suburban area like Harbison Blvd, more people would drive to it (relative to the urban location), even though it would have pedestrian-oriented street front.

My point is still that this fast food establishment's design is far better than the previous one.

[mr. chips]

Has anyone heard what is happening with the supposed construction of a bank branch at the corner of Harden and Blossom?

[BrasilnSC]

American Apparel has apparently closed, for good.

[krazeeboi]

That's too bad. I'm glad they gave urban locations a try, but they might have been better served by going to Columbiana.

[Spartan]

They also opened their stores when the economy just started to tank. Probably didn't help much.

[mr. chips]

Has anyone heard what is happening with the supposed construction of a bank branch at the corner of Harden and Blossom?

I noticed today that there is some digging going on here - has anyone seen what the plans are and how it will look?

[BrasilnSC]

I've seen the rendering, but can't find it now. It'll be a one story brick structure with the main entrance at the corner.

The steel is up and it looks like things are moving fast.....finally.

[krazeeboi]

It will be a BB&T branch building. Here's the rendering:

[Spartan]

All things considered, that is the best possible design for that bank. It will keep the 5-points look at least.

[BrasilnSC]

[Spartan]

Thanks for the pic. As drive-thru banks go, that one is pretty good.

[krazeeboi]

Very much so. I'm glad it preserves the solid wall of storefronts on the Harden side. Aside from the drive-thru portion, it's a pretty urban building.

[BrasilnSC]

[growingup15]

i saw that. i saw one of these in sumter a few days ago. its kinda cool to see something new in columbia. i hope to see one of these in more of the downtown area near the vista. or on main st.

[SCxpBrussel]

There is a City of Columbia sign in the window of the Game Stop at Santee & Blossom listing the property as up for re-zoning to be used as a restaurant. Does anyone know what it could be?