Multifamily housing surges across Columbia metro area

The housing boom in the growing Columbia metropolitan area doesn’t only include single-family homes.

New apartments galore are also going up as new multifamily units ranging from affordable housing to luxury complexes are being developed to accommodate those moving to the area for work, as well as college students, recent graduates moving into the work world, people leaving military service at Fort Jackson, senior citizens and others who call the Midlands home.

Market experts at Colliers South Carolina say that while the highest real-estate demand in the Midlands remains single-family housing, a growing number of multifamily projects are being planned to accommodate people who prefer apartment living as well as those who can’t afford homeownership or can’t find a home they want in the ongoing challenging housing market.

New apartment projects currently being built or recently completed range from affordable housing at Addison Pointe off Percival Road in Northeast Columbia, set to begin leasing in late 2025, and the 308 apartments at Burnside Farms at the intersection of Cliff Kinder and Pineview Roads along the growing Garners Ferry Road corridor in southeast Columbia.

The multifamily market for downtown Columbia also continues to grow, driven mainly by housing for college students, the vast majority of them attending the University of South Carolina. A recently proposed $225 million project from Chicago-based student housing developer Core Spaces would bring 700 new apartment units to downtown, with general use market-rate units in a 27-story tower facing Main Street and student housing in a 22-story tower facing Assembly Street. That project is currently going through review by the city’s Design and Review Board.

Add all of this to other projects recently completed or under construction up I-77 in Blythewood, across the river in West Columbia and in many other areas.

The term multifamily includes several different types of housing. Market rate refers to properties where residents pay the full market price for rent or purchase. Subsidized describes apartments like those at Addison Pointe where the government or a non-profit organization provides financial assistance to make the housing more affordable for low-income individuals and families. And, one of the fastest growing types in Columbia, student housing, or apartment-style housing for college students where the housing is measured by beds instead of units.

Another type of multifamily housing is a relatively new product called build-to-rent which is growing slowly in the Columbia area, according to Craig Waites, Colliers’ market president for Columbia. This consists of neighborhoods that often look like single-family housing but are actually houses available for rent, never intended for individual ownership.

Both market rate and subsidized multifamily units can be found throughout Richland and Lexington counties, while student housing is located in downtown Columbia near the University of South Carolina campus, near Williams-Brice Stadium along Shop Road and near I-77, with some student housing also located in West Columbia and Cayce. Waites noted that most of the student housing in those two areas are actually market-rate apartments which also advertise to students, but include non-student residents as well.

While it might seem like multi-family housing is popping up everywhere in the Midlands, the percentage of the area market it takes up has actually gone down a bit over the past 15 years in both Richland and Lexington counties, while the number of people seeking single-family homes continues to rise, according to Will Schenk, market analyst for Colliers.

“It’s a cyclical evolution that tends to go up and down,” Schenk said recently. “We’ll get waves of multifamily development, and then when the vacancy rate starts to climb the developers will kind of let off the gas. We are seeing a bit of a rise in multifamily demand in the Midlands right now because we just came off a trough where it had lowered.”

One of the biggest drivers of multifamily demand in the Midlands right now is economic growth, especially driven by the ongoing construction of the Scout Motors plant in Blythewood, which is eventually expected to employ up to 4,000 people in construction of the company’s line of electric and hybrid trucks and SUVs.

“I tend to characterize economic development like baseball, with singles, doubles, triples and home runs,” Schenk said. “I’ve lived here since the mid-1990s, and we’ve had some singles and doubles, but we haven’t had a home run like Scout in a long time. That’s going to reshape the economic profile of the region and you’re seeing the multifamily market track along with that. Thankfully the Columbia area is a place that can support that kind of development.”

Large new multifamily units like Burnside Farms, even though it’s 20 miles from Blythewood, are needed to provide housing for people working construction and related projects at Scout and other large businesses coming into the area, as well as for people who eventually will work for Scout’s vendors and suppliers.

Most of the Midlands’ multifamily housing growth is in Richland County, while single-family homes are contributing to more of the growth in Lexington County, one of the area’s fastest growing regions, according to Colliers.

Families with school-age children are increasingly seeking out the educational opportunities in Northeast Richland’s Richland District 2, while Lexington-Richland District 5 and Lexington Richland 1 are also experiencing phenomenal growth. To a lesser degree, growth is also coming to Kershaw County, especially the town of Elgin which straddles the Richland and Kershaw county lines, but most of the growth in that area is in single-family homes and in some cases is going slower than other areas because of a relative lack of infrastructure.

Multifamily growth in the Midlands is also being fueled by both a housing shortage and an influx of people moving to the area because of a better cost of living, which started back during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Nationally we’ve been running a deficit of housing on the whole — we’re not building nearly the housing we need anywhere,” Schenk said. “People have been migrating out of more expensive metropolitan areas into less expensive ones like Columbia and Charlotte. Even more expensive places in the state like Charleston are cheaper than what people are leaving in the Northeast, for instance. People of all ages and income levels have been picking up and moving here for work opportunities and because the price of housing is lower than other areas.”

Even though Midlands housing prices are lower than many regions in the country, the price of a newly built or existing single-family home is still beyond the means of many people, and young families who need space for growth are also seeing a low supply of affordable, larger homes on the market as national trends show more Baby Boomers and older homeowners are choosing to age in place. A wide range of multifamily opportunities gives these new residents in the Midlands a necessary place to live until they can find a house of their own, still the housing preference for a majority of Americans, according to studies.

Generational preference is another element driving the growth of the multifamily market, Waites said. Many young professionals simply don’t want the commitment of a house early in their careers.

“There is a general sense among younger folks that they don’t want to own houses,” Waites said. “They don’t want the responsibility or the maintenance, and they like the unique amenities that a lot of these newer apartment communities are offering. They have really nice swimming and recreational areas, and high-tech workout facilities available. That type of thing is attractive to young professionals who might not want to pay fees at a gym when they can find it right where they live.”

The rapid growth of student housing in downtown Columbia has sparked some concern from residents, who fear that the increase in apartments for college students takes up space that could be used for older local residents who would like to take advantage of living downtown.

The Colliers experts say that while those concerns might be valid, many people eventually find that student housing instead contributes to the growing vibrance of downtown Columbia and contributes to the economic market as a whole.

“The way I view housing is that any new housing of whatever form is good,” said Ron Anderson, vice president of research and information technology for Colliers.

Anderson, like many long-term residents, remembers a time when Main Street in downtown Columbia looked like it was enduring a long, slow death.

“In 2000, you could go into the middle of Main Street at night and you could shoot a gun off down the middle of the street and not hit anything,” Anderson said. “Now Main Street is vibrant and has come alive, and the real sea change downtown started with the redevelopment of the old SCANA tower in 2014.”

That year, the old SCANA building was transformed into The Hub at Columbia, a private student apartment complex that houses more than 850 students in 258 units.

“The Hub brought the critical mass of people downtown and invigorated everything else around it — that one single development literally changed everything,” Anderson said.

The continued growth of student housing downtown and in other areas not only enables college students to live alongside other residents but causes side benefits in terms of growth in retail, restaurants and other businesses, all which are enjoyed by other city residents and contribute to the city’s appeal — and eventually, more growth, Schenk said.

“We’ve heard the concern about student housing mainly in news stories over the past decade or so, but the reality is that we’ve seen student housing and market-rate housing side by side create a positive effect,” he said. “There are more people on the street, more safety for residents and more businesses moving in to accommodate them.”

Continued growth in Columbia is going to demand more apartments rising, from simpler garden-style apartments for families and seniors to high-rise glass towers for students and others who want the downtown experience.

“I think it all boils down to inward migration — with the Columbia market and South Carolina growing so fast, obviously they have to have a place to live,” Waites said. “The multifamily opportunities are part of that and we’re going to see multifamily housing expand as we grow. Honestly, the challenge we have at this point is really getting enough of that product up, running and moving into the market.”