Innovista

From Sunshine Review

Innovista is the University of South Carolina's 500-acre research campus. To date, more than $140 million has already been poured into Innovista,^[1] most of it state and local tax dollars, but the project remains mostly uncompleted or unfilled.

Innovista was intended to be a center for research on hydrogen and other technologies, and a magnet for private companies building spin-off products. Nearly four years later, Innovista’s goals remain largely unrealized as a majority of the buildings constructed can’t even be completed for lack of funds.^[2] Still, the lack of progress hasn’t soured the academic, civic and business leaders who continue to sing the praises of the $250 million live-work-play research district, which stretches from the Congaree River up past Assembly Street in Columbia, SC.

[edit] Problems with the project

At present, only the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health is actually operating out of Innovista. It occupies a $26 million building on Assembly Street in Columbia and also has space in the Discovery I building on Greene Street.

There are no other tenants largely because there's not much to move into. Both Horizon I and Discovery I are five-story buildings that are largely hollow shells. Discovery I does have the first and second floors completed, but floors 3-5 are unfinished and would likely take months before they would be ready for occupancy.^[1]

Still, Discovery I is considerably further along than Horizon I, which lacks even indoor plumbing. Both buildings sit unfinished because there aren’t funds to complete them.^[3] Without finished space, it’s difficult to land tenants. Both buildings, originally scheduled to be finished in 2008, are believed to need additional tens of millions dollars more to be completed.

And development hasn’t even begun on Horizon II or Discovery II, the other two buildings that are planned for the development. Those structures were to be privately financed, but funding has been hard to come by.

In August 2009, the university fired Kale Roscoe, the second developer hired to build the private portion of Innovista. USC's Board of Trustees was unaware of Roscoe's 2002 felony conviction for federal tax evasion.^[4] Innovista Director John Parks resigned the following month.^[5]

[edit] External links

• Innovista: State-Driven Economy Struggling Despite $140 Million in Taxpayer Support.
• Free Times: Innovista in a Bind
• Finance Woes Hold up Innovista
• New Master Plan to change the face and future of Columbia’s Waterfront District
• Innovista website

[edit] References

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