Nancy McCormick, Trudy Seibels, and Walter Sims of the Design/Development Review Commission

Finally breaking up after eight in the evening, Columbia’s Design/Development Review Commission (DDRC) met Tuesday afternoon at three for a work session and reconvened at four for its regular session. Members present were Jim Byrum, Durham Carter, Elizabeth Harrison, Jim Mancini, Nancy McCormick, Trudy Seibels, and Walter Sims.

The last issue on the 12–item agenda was another review of Windsor/Aughtry’s convention center headquarters Hilton hotel. Windsor/Aughtry’s architect Danny Bounds of Memphis couldn’t make it, which left the presentation to Bo Aughtry of Greenville. Bounds also designed Windsor/Aughtry’s Hampton Inn on Gervais Street.

Several months and $2 million in cost estimates ago, Bo Aughtry matriculated through a negative review by the DDRC. The main concern was the Park Street facade. DDRC member McClam was disappointed and even scared, he said, at the sight of the section of the eight–story wall without windows. The corner condition allowed for eight stories of windows facing Senate Street, but the length of a room with no windows was the result on Park Street.

Aughtry responded with windows running along the length of the corner rooms’ Park Street side.

Another complaint was the overbearing brick, as McCormick called it. There was some concern the hotel would sit incongruous with the State House. The capitol is on a Main Street axis roughly two blocks up the hill from the hotel. The State House grounds and its trees and even the I–Hop on Assembly Street block the view between the two buildings.

Nevertheless, Aughtry added limestone to the first floor elevations and inserted other light–toned finishes to offset the observations of a “dark presence” incongruous with the State House almost 900 feet away.

Again, $2 million in commission–required add–ons later, the DDRC appeared pleased. It’s not the DDRC’s job to review the financial feasibility pro forma as costs rise. It’s the developer’s problem to maintain profitability while the DDRC maintains aesthetic standards and promulgates preferences.

With some quibbling about a chiseled finish on the lower limestone and the commercial tackiness of the Ruth’s Chris sign, the DDRC voted unanimously to approve the hotel design. It’s Ruth’s Chris Steaks’ problem to turn a profit without its standard logotype backlit sign.

Aughtry has to resolve the few lingering side issues while his architect completes the working drawings. But he has the go–ahead for the building. The completed landscape plan and the altered front–lit Ruth’s Chris Steaks sign can be approved later.

Aughtry’s first appearance before the DDRC was in early December. Windsor/Aughtry’s contractor should be able to break ground by June.