Plans for a new housing development across from West Columbia’s often-complained-about chicken processing plant are moving ahead.

Baker Commercial Properties, which owns the vacant Capitol Square shopping center across from the House of Raeford slaughterhouse along Sunset Boulevard/U.S. 378, presented plans to redevelop the property to the city’s Planning Commission on Monday.

If all goes as planned, the shopping centered will be torn down as Baker transforms roughly 13 acres bordered by Sunset and Meeting Street/U.S. Highway 1, centered on a four-story living complex with 224 multi-family units. Plans also include a separate 27,000-square-foot grocery store, with the exact tenant to be announced, along with 18,000 square feet of retail and/or office space and 4,800 square feet in outparcels designated for retail.

Also included among the spaces detailed on potential maps for the development is a 5,000-square-foot restaurant space.

“We have identified a national grocer and are in continuing discussions with adjacent landowners, retailers, and commercial real estate professionals to solidify the eventual scope of the project,” Baker’s proposal to the city details, adding that the development is being design to “retain the character of the surrounding neighborhood while promoting pedestrian connectivity, and retail and commercial services desirable to the community, all centrally located.”

Development won’t impact parking

Preliminary details of the project were revealed earlier this year as part of an update made earlier this year to West Columbia’s redevelopment plan, and how the project would impact parking in the city’s burgeoning River District was among the unknowns. Capitol Square currently provides about 200 public parking spots used as critical overflow for visitors to such popular destinations as D’s Wings and Savage Craft Ale Works, which sit across a Meeting Street crosswalk from the empty shopping center.

The updated plans reveal that the city won’t lose much when it comes to public parking, as a 171-spot public parking lot along Leaphart Street would be included. Overall, the project is set to include somewhere between 550 and roughly 645 off-street parking spaces.

The development also calls for a large, landscaped open space directly across from D’s, Savage Craft and the pavilion used for the city’s Meeting Street Artisan Market.

“The Capitol Square redevelopment will be designed as a centrally located gathering place to facilitate further growth and expansion of the Riverfront District and West Columbia, using innovative design techniques and modern development approaches while honoring the existing architectural, cultural, and social context surrounding the site,” the proposal states.

Parking and two retail buildings are included where Chinese restaurant Eggroll Station has operated since 1990. The owners confirmed this summer that their building would be torn down as part of the redevelopment project, saying they had been told they had somewhere between a year and a year and a half from July to vacate the space.

The Planning Commission voted to recommend the requested zoning for the project, with West Columbia City Council set to consider it next month.

Capitol Square Shopping Center in West Columbia