Downtown Columbia Strategic Plan & Design Guidelines

Downtown Columbia Strategic Plan & Design Guidelines Columbia, South Carolina

Services Provided

Downtown Planning
Design Guidelines
Public Realm & Streetscape Guidelines
Community Engagement

People Involved

Darren Meyer
Luis Calvo
Benjamin Kern

A refreshed vision for Downtown Columbia’s built environment, 25 years in the making

The City of Columbia launched the Downtown Columbia Strategic Plan and Design Guidelines planning process together with a multidiscipline team led by MKSK. Through this effort, MKSK worked with the Columbia community to discern a refreshed vision for the quality of the built environment downtown. It has been 25 years since the adoption of the City Center Master Plan and more than 15 years since the adoption of the Innovista Master Plan.

A lot has changed in the years since these plans were adopted. Major infrastructure projects have been completed or are underway, thousands of housing units have been built, and the City has adopted both a new Unified Development Ordinance and Comprehensive Plan. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way people use downtowns and new trends in transportation have created shared and electric alternatives to traditional vehicular transport.

This two-part planning process involved synthesizing previous planning efforts taken on by the City of Columbia into a new set of goals and objectives. These goals and objectives were vetted through a community process to create a vision for Downtown Columbia that strategically enhanced the public spaces of this beloved downtown.

The Downtown Columbia Strategic Plan and Design Guidelines aim to:

  • Create a community-driven vision for the public character of downtown

  • Establish priorities for public policy and public investment in the downtown built environment

  • Protect the unique character and assets of the historic urban core

  • Form the basis for Downtown Design Guidelines to help shape great public spaces