•Arts, Activities and Special Attractions in Columbia
For a city of our size, Columbia has a very strong arts program. Tickets to ballets, orchestra, and theater performances are readily available and reasonably priced. Starting fall 2006 we will have Broadways Plays performed regularly at the acclaimed Koger Center. The Cultural Council, the "official arts council for the Midlands," works with and promotes organizations such as The Columbia World Affairs Council, The Columbia Design League and our new children's museum, EdVenture.
The Cultural Council publishes an Arts Monthly Calendar in The State newspaper, and also produces a web page with the calendar of events of artistic happenings in Columbia.
The University of South Carolina also frequently hosts cultural events that are open to the public. In addition, USC provides residents of the Columbia area with a wide selection of fun sporting events to attend. The University of South Carolina Gamecocks play in the highly competitive Southeastern Conference and host football games at Williams Brice Stadium, one of the ten largest stadiums in the country. Columbia also plays host to minor league baseball and to its own professional ice hockey team.
The Congaree Vista is the city's historic commercial district, and has become one of the city's most lively areas for shopping, dining, and nightlife. The Colonial Center, which opened in 2002, is South Carolina's premiere arena and entertainment facility, and next to it is the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center, which opened in 2004. This 142,500 square foot, modern facility was designed for hosting a variety of meetings and conventions. The Carolina Coliseum is also used for performing arts events such as the Chicago Symphony and Feld Ballet. You can visit the Columbia Museum of Art, the state’s top international art museum, Newberry Opera House, McKissick Museum, Lexington County Museum, South Carolina State Museum, and State House.
The city has a number of festivities throughout the year. The South Carolina State Fair is held every October. St. Patrick’s Day Festival in March is a popular event. Riverfest Celebration is held in early spring and includes a 5K River Run, musical entertainment, arts, crafts and food. Earth Day at Finlay Park and Main Street Jazz are also held each spring. Three Rivers Music Festival is a three-day event with a wide array of local as well as national musical acts. Artista Vista has become a major attraction for artists and collectors. The Greek Festival is held in September, as is the Irmo Okra Strut, which features a street dance, a 10K road race, golf tournament, arts and crafts, rides, food and South Carolina’s largest festival parade. Family Fest is a one-day open-air concert held in Finlay Park in late spring. Eau Claire Renaissance Faire features the Renaissance Parade and an outdoor concert. The year ends with the celebration of Vista Lights.
Riverbanks Zoo is a sanctuary for over 2,000 animals, which is situated along the Saluda River. It has been rated one of the nation’s top 10 zoos as well as the top travel attraction in the Southeast. The zoo features a penguin exhibit and a working farm, among other fascinating exhibits. Just across the river is the 70-acre botanical garden, with gardens, woodlands, plant collections, and historic ruins. It has been recognized as one of the top 20 botanical gardens in North America. Columbia is also home to EdVenture, the South's largest children's museum.
Columbia is known for its large number of independent theater groups. Some of the local theatres include; Columbia's Town Theatre purports to be the oldest continually operating theater in America, Trustus Theatre, Nickelodeon Theatre, Columbia Marionette Theatre, the South Carolina Shakespeare Company, and the Workshop Theatre of South Carolina. The city has a city ballet, philharmonic orchestra, a jazz dance company, and a choral society. The Columbia Marionette Theatre, a member of the Cultural Council, is one of only 10 marionette theaters in the United States.
• Columbia, SC Real Estate Remains Steady
As reported in The State Newspaper on October 25, 2006--
Home sales in S.C. slide in September
Upstate, coastal figures down; Columbia-area sales steady
By KRISTY EPPLEY RUPON
krupon@thestate.com
Home sales in the Upstate started to slip in September — mirroring a trend along the coast and in most of the nation — while Columbia-area sales remained steady, according to the S.C. Association of Realtors.
Five of six Upstate regions showed declines for September, compared to a year ago.
The Piedmont region — which includes Rock Hill, York, Lancaster and Chester counties — showed the sharpest drop, at 34.5 percent. The region sold 322 homes in September 2005 and only 211 last month.
But Butch Brindel, chief executive of the Piedmont Regional Association of Realtors, said the figure is an anomaly and home sales are strong in the region near rapidly growing Charlotte.
“Everybody’s talking about the housing bubble bursting,” he said. “The bubble’s not bursting here.”
Last year, Brindel said, $649 million worth of real estate was sold in the region. To date this year, that number is already at $788 million.
September traditionally is a slow month for home sales everywhere, Brindel said, because children are starting school and most families who are moving already have settled into their new homes.
Nick Kremydas, head of the state Realtors group, said one reason for the declining numbers could be that investors — who have been pulling out along the coast — are now leaving other areas of the state, such as lake resort communities in some of the Upstate regions.
“The short-term investors have left the state,” he said. “We can say that now statewide.”
Statewide, home sales were down 12.5 percent in September — to 5,720 from 6,539. And only four of 15 regions in South Carolina showed gains for September.
The Southern Midlands Association — Orangeburg, Calhoun and Bamberg counties — showed the greatest gain, at 5.6 percent. Columbia-area home sales were up 3.6 percent. And coastal sales continued a steady decline.
The median home price — the price at which half the homes in the market are selling for more and half for less — in Columbia also was up nearly 3 percent, to $140,000 from $136,000.
• COLUMBIA RANKED IN TOP 10 FOR INVESTMENT
Columbia ranks as one of the top 10 small college towns for investment according to NuWire Investor.
NuWire, an online service, ranked cities with populations of 200,000 and fewer and compiled statistics on factors such as growth potential, job markets, property values, cost of living, atmosphere, retirement appeal, intangibles, and overall investment potential.
Columbia ranked number 7 on that list based on affordable real estate prices and strong job growth.
• A Recent LA Times Article About Columbia
We're not the only people who think buying a home in Columbia is a great idea.
"So far . . . so good"
"Priced out at home, Californians are taking their investment dollars elsewhere. Where's pay dirt? Think Texas, South Carolina, Idaho."
By Ann Brenoff, LA Times Staff Writer
May 28, 2006
"THERE are bargains in them thar hills, just not the hills of the Golden State, apparently.
Californians, unable to afford the already mightily appreciated residential property market here, are taking their investment dollars elsewhere. Small investors are heading for the plains of Texas, the coasts of the Carolinas and parts of Georgia and Idaho in search of tomorrow's realty geysers.
Experts counsel investors to seek areas where the economy is strong — or poised to rebound. Look for low unemployment rates, a business-friendly climate and places people are moving to, not from. New highways under construction point to anticipated growth. So do plans by Starbucks and Home Depot to open stores, according to investment guru Marshall Reddick on his website. Instead of location, location, location, think jobs, jobs, jobs.
Today Columbia is home to the University of South Carolina's 28,000 students and Ft. Jackson — the Army's largest training base (45,000 soldiers pass through annually) with 3,600 active-duty soldiers and 5,200 civilian employees — both excellent sources of tenants. And don't forget state employees. As Deborah Bayles, a Realtor at Palmetto Preferred Properties Inc., put it: "I've never heard of government shrinking, have you?" The Census Bureau predicts Columbia's population will double by 2025, growing to about 230,000.
For sale at $90,000 is a 1,120-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bathroom patio townhome with a gas fireplace, built three years ago. With a down payment of 20%, or $18,000, the rate on an investor mortgage of $72,000 would be 6.75%, or $467 a month for principal and interest, says Greg Boyle at Centric Mortgage.
Homeowners association dues are on average $54 a month. Property taxes would be $1,350 a year, or $112.50 per month. Figure in $50 a month for insurance and another $50 a month for property management fees.
Average monthly expenses: $733.50.
Expected rent: $825, says Bayles, who hails from Southern California and whose clientele is primarily out-of-state investors.
The median home price in Columbia was $138,000 last year, according to http://www.money.cnn.com . Properties appreciated 7.3% from 2004 to 2005, and the projected appreciation for 2006 is a nothing-to-sneeze-at 6.6%. Not a bad deal given the relatively low prices.
The least expensive Columbia residence recently on the Multiple Listing Service was $77,500. Go ahead, do the math."
• A Recent Article on Homes in the Downtown Columbia, SC Neighborhood known as Earlewood
Earlewood fills demand for downtown housing
Diverse area hasn’t changed much since 1940s, until recently.
Virginia Bedford is remodeling her third home in the Earlewood area. Her current project on Union Street is a 1920s craftsman-style home.
More photosDown on Union Street in historic Earlewood, Virginia Bedford is touching up the paint on a 1920s-era house she is renovating to sell.
Several blocks away, developer Thom Walker is talking about the half-million-dollar houses and swank condos he will build along the Columbia Canal.
Earlewood, established in 1910, is a community as diverse as the Hardiplank cottages, brick ranch homes and two-story Charleston-style manors that line its streets.
“I loved this little neighborhood from the beginning,” Bedford said. “I love this style house. It’s so Americana.”
Bedford has called Earlewood home since 1977, when she bought her first house on Clark Street — for $14,000.
Today, that home — which she upgraded with a heating and cooling system, among other renovations — probably would sell for $180,000, she said.
Ten years ago, she moved into the house next door and renovated it.
Around the corner, Elizabeth Glover Davis spends her days in the house she grew up in — the house her parents bought there in 1915.
When Davis was young, there were less than a dozen, two-story, wooden homes in the area. Theirs was the first brick, bungalow-style house in the neighborhood, which now has an estimated 1,500 households.
Davis moved to “the other side of town” (Devine Street) when she married but spent much of her time in Earlewood while her husband was fighting in World War II. She moved back for good in 1968 when her parents were sick.
“I always had a room here,” she said.
Davis — who used to walk home from Columbia High School when it was in downtown Columbia — saw the first wave of development hit Earlewood from the 1920s through 1940s.
“When the (Lake Murray) dam was built in 1927, a lot of people moved here,” said Davis, whose family were members of the nearby Lutheran Church of the Reformation. “A lot of them were Lutherans.
“During World War II, a lot of these houses were made into duplexes. After that, it wasn’t too nice for a number of years.”
In 1979, about the time Jim Prater bought a home there, the Earlewood Community Citizens Organization was formed to look out for the neighborhood’s future.
“I moved in, and they stuck a flier on the door about the neighborhood meeting to talk about the plan for the neighborhood,” he said.
He went to the meeting where residents were looking at the first draft of a plan they soon would adopt to guide growth.
“It was an attempt to look at where we were as an urban transitional neighborhood and to arrive at a common understanding of what we wanted our destiny to be,” said Prater, who now is president of the organization.
The group has remained active, fighting commercial development along River Drive in the heart of the residential district, as well as fighting the widening of Sunset Drive.
“We’ve fought encroachment at every turn over the years,” Prater said.
Davis agrees that the neighborhood hadn’t changed much since the 1940s — until recently.
Enter developer Thom Walker, who is building Canal Place within Earlewood.
The neighborhood is approved for 700 new homes, town houses and condos and eventually could have as many 900.
Since 2002, Walker has built about 60 homes in Canal Place — in the architectural style of the surrounding historic neighborhood. He recently started selling $150,000 lots along the canal. Homes on those lots are expected to exceed $500,000 in value.
This summer, he plans to start construction on a 50-unit condominium complex in the development. The condos will sell in the $180,000-$250,000 range.
“For downtown Columbia, this is pretty unique — that you can be in downtown and have this,” said Walker, standing on the quiet homesites on an unusually warm January day overlooking the Columbia Canal, a walking path and the Broad River.
Since Walker started developing Canal Place — which followed some infill development in the 1980s and 1990s and the Laurel Hill neighborhood — more people have been renovating houses in the historic part of Earlewood.
And with the growth, Prater said , it’s time for Earlewood to begin looking at its nearly 30-year-old plan to determine how it needs to change.
“We’ve never actually revised the document,” he said.
The plan probably will remain the same in some ways — keeping River Drive as the residential heart of the community — and change in others. Prater expects neighborhood leaders to look toward the Canal Place end of the neighborhood.
“We’ll probably look to that side in terms of what’s next, what are the opportunities,” he said.
Bedford understands the need for developments like Canal Place — even though at heart she’d rather see more people rehabbing the community’s historic homes.
But she knows that’s not for everybody, and with the demand for downtown living growing, she recognizes Earlewood will, too.
“It’s not just Earlewood, it’s downtown. People want to live downtown.”
• A recent article on homes in the Cottonwood/Bellevue neighborhood in Columbia, SC
Posted on Sun, Dec. 10, 2006
Neighborhood | Cottonwood/Bellevue
This downtown Columbia neighborhood dates to 1902.
• Price range: $185,000 to $450,000
• School district: Richland 1 (richlandone.org)
• Crime stats: In the neighborhood’s general vicinity — between Main and Bull streets and Grace Street and Elmwood Avenue — there were no major crimes reported in recent months and three registered sex offenders. For more information, see richlandmaps.com.
• Styles/age range: This historic neighborhood has mainly bungalow-style homes dating to 1902, but many were built in the 1920s. The one- and two-story homes are a mix of brick and clapboard siding and range from 1,200 to 4,000 square feet. Most have a detached garage and sit on 60-foot-by-180-foot lots.
• Homeowner fees: $5/year (nonmandatory)
• Recent comps: Three homes sold earlier this year for $150,000, $226,000 and $259,900.
• Proximity to: Less than five minutes from downtown and walking distance to the state capitol; less than five minutes from I-277 and I-126.
• Amenities: Sidewalks, streetlights, mature trees, and close to parks
• What I like about living here: “It’s the people,” said Paul Bouknight, who moved to the community five years ago. “It’s a diverse, friendly neighborhood.” Bouknight has one neighbor who has lived there since 1927, when he was 5 years old. But many residents now are young families. “It’s a downtown neighborhood that has truly been revitalized.” Bouknight said the North Main Street fire station acts as a town hall for the community, and the neighborhood puts on events each year like a Fourth of July parade and a Christmas party for children. “I’ve lived in condominium complexes and in traditional subdivisions. I’ve never lived anywhere that there’s such a sense of community.”
• On Homes in the East Lake Neighborhood in Columbia, SC
Posted on Sun, Dec. 17, 2006
Neighborhood | East Lake
This neighborhood on Garners Ferry Road in southeast Richland is seven years old.
• Price range: $100,000 to $165,000
• School district: Richland 1 (www.richlandone.org)
• Crime stats: In the neighborhood’s general vicinity — between Atlas Road, Garners Ferry Road and Colonial Villa Drive — there were three burglaries and one motor vehicle theft in October and there are three registered sex offenders. For more information or crime statistics, see richlandmaps.com.
• Styles/age range: Mostly two-story traditional homes in the 1,100- to 2,700-square-foot range. Some homes are one-story.
• Homeowner fees: $132/year
• Recent comps: Three homes sold this summer for $97,500, $109,300 and $122,000.
• Proximity to: Less than five minutes from I-77 and the shopping district on Garners Ferry Road. Ten minutes from downtown Columbia.
• Amenities: Lake with community access, community socials, maintenance of common areas, street lights, athletic field, picnic shed, future plans for a playground and larger community shed
• What I like about living here: For Andre Jackson, moving to East Lake in 2000 meant coming home. “We’re a military family,” he said. “We were looking for a very diverse neighborhood that was close to family.” Jackson and his wife, Erika, have roots and family in southeast Richland. “East Lake was the ideal neighborhood for us.” A couple of years ago, Jackson made the transition from active duty in the U.S. Army at Fort Jackson to being a major in the U.S. Army Reserves there. He and his wife also work there as civilians so being near the fort and being in a good school district were important for them and their son, Andre Jr., 8. Jackson said he also likes the diversity of East Lake — which has a range of residents, from retired military to professionals and young families.
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