CAMDEN — Crews have begun removing the outer brickwork of the building at the base of Camden’s historic clock tower for a 60-room hotel and restaurant, which officials hope will draw tourists and business travelers downtown.
The developers expect the $23 million hotel, known as Haigler Hotel, to be finished in early 2027.
Since last month, workers have been stripping the building’s exterior to replace with new bricks walls meant to fit with the “architectural style” of the 19th-century clock tower and better resemble the opera house that once stood there, developer Ben Zeigler said.
“We’re not going to take it back to exactly the way it looked in 1886. It’s going to have a little bit of a modern flair to it,” Zeigler said of the opera house, which was torn down in the 1960s and replaced by the current building that housed a B.C. Moore & Sons department store for decades.
The hotel will include event space for conferences, weddings and other gatherings.
The restaurant will be managed by Charleston-based Indigo Road Hospitality Group, but the company did not respond to an interview request and its concept remains unclear. On its website, the group highlights a few of its more than a dozen restaurants, located mostly in the Southeast, as offering an “elevated dining” experience.
Camden, about 35 miles from Columbia and home to roughly 9,000 residents, has grown 14 percent since 2020, according to census estimates. Officials responded to that growth, which has raised concerns from many residents about traffic and large developments, by imposing a yearlong temporary ban on new housing that expired last month.