COLUMBIA — When Tim Robinson first came to Huger Street, it was a very different place.
Robinson, 74, moved to the neighborhood in 1972 as a co-owner of Todd & Moore sports equipment store, which has been at 620 Huger St. since 1969. At the time, he thought the city could take more advantage of the nearby Congaree River.
“I was astonished at how underdeveloped that was over there,” Robinson told The Post and Courier. “I mean, there was nothing all the way up, yet this river is right there. And it was like it was ignored.”
That has changed in the 40 years since.
Businesses, apartments and hotels have popped up along the Huger Street corridor. Nearly 22,000 cars passed through Huger on average every day in 2024, according to data from the South Carolina Department of Transportation.
And that growth shows signs of accelerating. The city has plans in the coming years to extend the street grid towards the Congaree River to connect with a future public park along the riverfront.
The city expects construction on extending Williams Street between Gervais and Blossom streets to begin in early 2026, along with new turning lanes, stoplights and pedestrian crossings across Huger to connect the park to the rest of the city. The riverfront park is still in the final design phases.
But developers aren’t waiting for that work to be completed before moving into the neighborhood.
Off to the races for developers
A new hotel near the intersection of Huger and Gervais opened in April 2025. Another is planned for the lot one block over, at the corner of Huger and Senate.
Two new apartment complexes are under construction at the intersection of Huger and Blossom streets — one directly behind Todd & Moore.
Students have come to Todd & Moore to try and rent spots in the store’s parking lot. Developers from New York and Chicago have also come knocking, hoping to buy the store, Robinson said.
Robinson is hopeful all the development will continue to bring more foot traffic to his business and will better activate the city’s riverfront, but he also has noticed more customers complaining of traffic than they used to, and having trouble finding the store when they come in from out of town.
“We think that to some extent at least, that can benefit us,” Robinson said. “We want to be as accessible as possible to people coming from wherever they come, and so as traffic increases, that just puts some more obstacles out there as far as people getting here. But, you know, our business is certainly holding up.”
He’s not alone.
‘I want traffic.’
Clark Ellefson, owner of Stormwater Studios on Huger, is also excited to see the riverfront park come to fruition, but hopes the project will bring safety improvements for pedestrians and cyclists crossing Huger to the riverfront.
“Hopefully when it gets redeveloped, (the city) will have those aspects in mind, so you can actually walk down to that area without feeling like you’re going to be hit by a truck, and actually cross the street at places,” Ellefson said.
Ellefson, who has had his studio in the neighborhood for about two decades, is surprised it’s taken this long for the riverfront to grow, he said. He hopes the adjacent commercial growth will see some market-rate apartments rather than just student housing.
Andrew Strauss, co-founder of Columbia Craft brewery on Pulaski Street just off Huger, has seen the area transform from an out-of-the-way spot surrounded by dirt roads to a destination spot for pedestrians and visitors since they opened in 2017, he said.
“It’s hard for me to complain about the traffic, because I want traffic,” Strauss said. “I’d rather just time my go home route past 6 or 6:30 than for it to be dead.”
‘A point of interest’ for the city
The city’s intention is to have the extension of Williams Street from Gervais to Blossom streets — which the rest of the street grid extension will link to — be used more for pedestrian, bike and park traffic rather than a major thoroughfare, said Clint Shealy, director of Columbia Water. The city’s water department is heading the project.
The city expects the street grid extension and subsequent traffic improvements to keep any park traffic from worsening congestion along Huger, he said.
“Any impact that those turning movements (from the riverfront roadways) onto Huger Street and on traffic flow along Huger Street have to be considered and will be baked into the design of the improvements along Huger Street,” Shealy said. “So we really shouldn’t see any additional inconvenience to daily commuters that use Huger Street in terms of traffic stacking or turning movements and those types of things.”
Improvements to the intersection of Williams Street at Blossom and Gervais should be completed before the new asphalt connecting the two has been laid, Shealy said. Low speed limits, a traffic circle and wider sidewalks and bike lanes should keep the new roadways from becoming cut-throughs from busier streets.
The timing of the new traffic lights and pedestrian crosswalk signals along Huger can also be adjusted in the future to better serve the number of visitors trying to cross into the park, he said.
The issue of more commercial development along Huger causing congestion is more of a general city planning issue than one concerning the new riverfront park and roadwork, he said.
“It’s not a worry, not necessarily a concern, but a point of interest for all of us that we look at growth and planning our connectivity network, whether it be vehicles, bicycles, pedestrian traffic, etcetera,” he said.