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Downtown Living
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Barringer Building The Barringer Building is considered to be South Carolina's first skyscraper. Built in 1903 as the National Loan & Exchange Bank, the building is a steel-frame structure rising twelve stories above Main Street. It was renovated into 75 apartments by Capitol Places, and has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979. |
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1520 Main Street 1520 Main Street, a new residential condominium building across the street from the Columbia Museum of Art, houses the first new residences on Main Street in over a hundred years. |
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The new building replaces a Walgreen's store built in the 1940's. Although
there are dozens of condos and apartments in renovated buildings downtown,
1520 Main Street is unique in that it is a brand new building.
The building is between two historic structures: the
Kress Building,
now home of the Rising High Restaurant,
and the Canal Dime Building, home of the Jammin Java coffee shop. 1520 Main Street is
joined to the Canal Dime Building. Two units in the Canal Dime Building have become
residential condos, priced at over a half million dollars each. The combined buildings
now house 34 residential condos and two commercial spaces, and share a common lobby
and elevator.
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Tapp's Building Tapp's Department Store operated at the corner of Main and Blanding Streets for almost a hundred years, closing in 1995. The upper floors have been converted to loft-stype condominiums, and the ground floor houses a new fitness center. For more information about the condos in this building, go to the Capitol Places website. |
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S.H. Kress Company The S.H. Kress store on Main Street in Columbia was designed by Edward F. Sibbert, who joined S.H. Kress in 1929 and designed about 50 Art Deco style stores over a 25 year period. The Columbia store was built in 1935 and remained opened until 1993. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. |
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In 1998, the building was renovated and adapted for reuse by Capitol Places and now houses the Rising High coffee shop, while the upper floors have been converted into apartments. The Kress Building is considered Columbia's best example of Art Deco.
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Canal Dime Bank Building The Canal Dime Savings Bank is Columbia's only surviving example of the Richardson Romanesque style of architecture. Constructed in 1892, the building was designed by the Smith-Whaley architectural firm and is the work of either Whaley or his partner, Gadsden Shand. The building was later purchased by the Loan and Exchange Bank, the State Bank and Trust Company, the People's Bank of Columbia, and Eckerd's Drug Store. It is a three-story brick building with a granite facade and red barrel tile roof. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. |
All photos by ©2001-2008, Solar Systems, 701 Gervais St. #150-300, Columbia SC 29201
