Passion for Pizza - Columbia Business Times

Voices ... continued from Page 8
A postcard of downtown Columbia a century ago.
— used to regale the office some 40 years ago with his yarns
about the Columbia Tribune's proposed publishing complex
where the somewhat scaled down newspaper building
stands today. “Boss,” as we all called him, snidely described
the Waters family “monument to debt” as being at least eight
or nine stories high and topped off by a restaurant. Perhaps
lapsing into exaggeration, Aldridge might have said the
restaurant would revolve and complete a 360-degree circuit
every hour.
During the years, there have been subtractions to the
skyline as well, with floors eliminated or structures reduced
to rubble. The old Dorn-Cloney Laundry Building on South
Eighth Street, for example, is now just a parking lot.
The postcard (above) shows the view from the southeast
corner of Broadway and Hitt streets. On the right side is the
Elvira Building (now the Menser Building). The Stephens
Endowment Building at the northeast corner of 10th and
Broadway was torn down after a fire of suspicious origin
gutted it in 1983. Across 10th Street on the northwest corner,
the former multi-level Parsons Building has just a single
story. Further east and out of view, the VanMatre law office
occupies the once substantially taller Columbia Theatre,
which was reduced in height after a fire many years ago.
As for the parking structure under construction on
the northwestern edge of downtown, the city should be
applauded for having the foresight to anticipate future
parking needs as the central business district is re-invented
as the locus of government, banking, dining, entertainment
and other reasons to visit. The existing parking garage on
Walnut Street, between City Hall and the courthouse, is limited
to its present height and capacity both by its design and
the adoption of more stringent building codes. It the future,
undoubtedly, that garage will be torn down.
What should have gone in there all along was a civic plaza
— a park if you will — replete with trees and shrubbery that
provide a much-needed oasis of green downtown. Building
a parking garage underground as bigger cities have done
would have been ideal, but Columbia is years away from
being in that league.
The new parking structure will have nine rental spaces
allocated for the ground floor, and REDI plans to use some of
that space for its offices.
The city wanted to bring in a private developer to finish the
interior construction on the 13,000-square-foot ground floor
and sublease the space for commercial tenants. However, no
one bid on the city’s proposal.
We can't say we weren't warned about the building plans
because there was plenty of discussion and coverage in the
media. So abstain from saying we were being “libraried” on
this one by city officials.
The project should be assessed when it is completed, after
the tower crane and its winking red beacon are gone and the
first paying customers are welcomed to its concrete innards.
Get used to it because it won't go away. But let's hope it
will be adopted and used and not sit there like some enormous
white elephant. v
13 September 18, 2010 Columbia Business Times | ColumbiaBusinessTimes.com