The former Dominion Energy campus pictured on September 6, 2024. (Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA – State-paid renovation work on the new leased home of South Carolina public health authorities is expected to begin in early spring.
The state Department of Administration, which serves as a clearinghouse for all state assets, notified the Legislature’s Budget Oversight Committee on Monday that it plans to finalize a construction contract in February. The contractor will remodel the interior of a former utility campus to meet the needs of more than 1,700 state employees moving from downtown Columbia to Lexington County.
The $5.5 million project is expected to be completed in May, according to commission documents.
That would be one month before the end of the first year of the property’s lease.
The 14-year-old complex, formerly home to Dominion Energy’s South Carolina offices, will house the state’s public health, mental health, disability, and alcohol and drug addiction treatment agencies.
The state signed a 20-year lease — worth about $380 million — with Columbia-area real estate developer and S.C. Ports Authority Chairman Bill Stern for the property in late 2023. The lease took effect on July 1 at the start of the current financial year, but improvements still need to be made before all agencies can move in.
The renovation and moving costs were part of the $30 million lawmakers set aside for the first year the property was rented. Rent alone is $11 million for the fiscal year ending June 30. Other expenses include utilities and county property taxes, which the state does not pay on properties it owns.
The deal followed a legislative mandate that broke up the state’s massive public health and environmental agency.
House members then tried to go a step further, with plans to merge the new, separate public health agency with the state departments of Disabilities and Special Needs, Mental Health, and Alcohol and Other Substance Abuse, as well as those who oversee the services for the elderly and patients covered by Medicaid.
But those efforts were thwarted in the final minutes of the regular legislative session by an ultraconservative faction within the state House.
The House Freedom Caucus blocked the merger bill. But the planned move of state offices from the redeveloped BullStreet District in downtown Columbia went ahead.
Rental contract extended
Also on Monday, fiscal regulators gave a nod to a seven-year lease extension by one of the agencies included in the merger.
The State Department on Aging will reside in the office tower in downtown Columbia across from the Statehouse where it has been housed for the past two decades, increasing the space it leases to 150,000 square feet.
The agency will spend $2.67 million over the course of the lease, which begins July 1, 2025. As part of the deal, the agency will contribute $350,000 to renovate the space, covering just over half the cost of improvements.
Senate President Thomas Alexander raised questions about why the state paid for improvements to the privately owned building before voting in favor of the lease.
The Valhalla Republican has not expressed similar objections to the more expensive renovation work on the private property that will house other health-related agencies.
