SC could spend $496M to move state employees in deal that benefits major donor

The state is expected to spend nearly $500 million relocating those agencies from the redeveloped BullStreet District in downtown Columbia.

The South Carolina Department of Education officially marked the move of its 940 employees out of the agency’s long-time downtown Columbia office building Monday, cutting the ribbon on a new, 150,000-square-foot headquarters at the State Farmers Market in rural Lexington County.

The state Education Department is the first of the two agencies to move in, joining the previously relocated state Department of Agriculture on the Farmers Market grounds.

The state agency’s move to the building 10 miles away from its downtown home is not yet complete. Some employees are still moving in. The process started in June.

The three-story structure boasts a cafeteria, exercise room, an atrium for employee gatherings and a wide variety of conference rooms and meeting spaces to host trainings for teachers and administrators from school districts around the state.

Weaver called the building “a visible token of the Palmetto State’s investment in and commitment to the educational future of all of our students.”

Construction continues on the Department of Natural Resource’s building.

Two miles north, Stern is also taking ownership of another major office property that will house state agencies.

Dominion Energy named Stern the grantee for the utility company’s 100-acre South Carolina campus, according to filings on the Lexington County Register of Deeds website.

A new deed has yet to be filed, and the purchase price has yet to be made public record.

The massive headquarters, which Dominion inherited when it took over SCANA Corp. in a 2019 buyout, will be the new home of the state agencies that provide services for people with disabilities, mental health issues, and alcohol and drug addictions, as well as the state public health agency after its recent split with the state environmental department.

That state is expected to spend nearly $500 million relocating those agencies from the redeveloped BullStreet District in downtown Columbia. Similar to the new education and natural resources locations, the lease with Stern for the former Dominion campus is a 20-year deal.

Meanwhile, the University of South Carolina spent $2.2 million in December to purchase the education agency’s downtown office building.

The state’s largest university system is still exploring its options for the property, spokesman Jeff Stensland.

USC is in talks with private developers about the potential of converting the 14-story office tower, located just off the college’s historic Horseshoe, into a housing development.

Stensland said that could potentially include housing for graduate students. It would not be geared to undergraduates.

Previous plans by a private developer to turn the building into apartments in 2022 never materialized.

The building, constructed in the 1960s, has been on the market since at least 2017.

In 2015, then-Gov. Nikki Haley included the tower among properties she called “money pits” that should be sold.

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