Commentary by Warner M. Montgomery

Warner@TheColumbiaStar.com

Columbia yearns to be "A Capital Place," "The Hydrogen Center of America," and where "It's Happening Now!" This yearning has been somewhat relieved by the "Coble Renaissance" and USC's Innovista with new office buildings downtown, fashionable apartments and condos in the Vista, redeveloped public housing, and promised improvements in Five Points, yet we still yearn.

Columbia City Council stymied urban growth by pretending to be developers for 15 years. Their masquerade only enriched a few of their friends during the Air South, Convention Center, and Convention Hotel disasters. The dormant Canalside (CCI) project lost $5 million before they turned it over to real developers. Now, they run a Homeless Hotel.

Meanwhile, growth in the suburbs has been nonstop. Richland Northeast is booming. The I- 26 and I- 77 corridors are booming. Lexington is booming. Lower Richland is on the cusp of rural revitalization. The children of the city are outpacing their parents.

The Village at Sandhills is an example of a child taking advantage of a parent's mistake. Alan Kahn, the visionary developer who grew up in Columbia, saw an opportunity and seized it. He bought some old Clemson farmland, wooed a disorganized Richland County Council, designed a model village, and got it done. No government help. No government corruption.

Kahn's 300- acre, Disneyland- style village is customer- friendly, easily accessible, neat, clean, and safe. All by design. Everyone is welcomed to "South Carolina's newest lifestyle venue offering the very best in shopping, dining, entertainment, working, living and more - all in one exceptionally beautiful and convenient location."

The three large retail centers already exchange more money and collect more taxes than Downtown, the Vista, and Five Points combined.

The Forum has an array of big box stores. The Marketplace is anchored by Super BILO. The Town Center connects the first two and is packed with lifestyle retailers and leading restaurants, along with live entertainment, cultural and holiday events, and community activities. Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto may amble by at any time.

Bulldozers and cranes are busy at work on residences within walking distance of shopping, dining, and movies. Kahn promises a complementary mix of retail, residential, recreational, hospitality, sports, commercial office, and medical office venues in one grand lifestyle campus. (http://www.kahndevelopment.com/village/index.php)

Parking is plentiful and free. No meters. Public bathrooms have auto flush toilets and no graffitti. Security video scans the streets and the stores. Customers are invited to report criminal activity to shop personnel and the friendly security guards.

Music, pleasant, not rap, flows from hidden speakers. Lighting is effective and subdued. There are no overhead wires. Trash containers are conveniently placed. Corners, intersections, and parking areas are landscaped with native plants, flowers, and trees. Flood control ponds promise to capture rainfall before it floods the streets.

The Village at Sandhills is designed for middle Americans not for the poor or the rich. I doubt it will ever have a homeless problem or a five diamond restaurant. Kahn's village is what Columbia could be…with more vision and less government intervention.