Bostick Tompkins Funeral Home

Azurest at Heritage Creek, announced in November, is a privately funded project that will bring single-family and multi-unit homes and retail space to a site near Interstate 20 on Mason Road.“This definitely will be a game-changer for North Columbia,” said Cecil Hannibal, executive director of the Eau Claire-North Columbia Development Corp.In addition to improving the quality of available housing, it should bring the kind of shops and other small businesses that are part of what makes a neighborhood livable, said Columbia City Council Member Sam Davis, who represents the area.“It’s really going to add some of the basic amenities that every progressive neighborhood should have,” Davis said.Needing the growthNorth Columbia has been a less affluent area of the city historically, and that has been reflected in lower investment.According to a 2017 retail real estate report by commercial real estate firm Colliers, north Columbia had a far lower stock of retail space than other districts of the city, listing about 350,000 square feet of space compared to more than 3.5 million square feet in the Harbison/St. Andrews area and almost 4 million square feet in Northeast Richland.Even with that lower supply, north Columbia had the highest rate of vacant retail space at almost 15 percent, compared to 9.2 percent in the Northeast and just 1.3 percent in the adjacent downtown district. North Columbia also had by far the lowest average requested rent, according to the Colliers report.North Columbia has been seeing some growth recently, prompted in part by a city streetscaping project that has revitalized the appearance of a stretch of North Main Street closest to the hot downtown real estate market.Retail businesses including restaurants and shops have been opening in the wake of the streetscaping, including the coming relocation of the iconic Columbia snack retailer, Cromer’s, to 3030 N. Main St. on Feb. 1.The Azurest project should prompt growth over on north Columbia’s northern edge, giving the area added economic vitality on bo... (Charleston Post Courier)