A 300-Unit Building Just Cleared Its Biggest Hurdle On Calhoun Street

A seven-story, 300-unit apartment building at 295 Calhoun Street just got past the design review board that killed every version that came before it.

The Board of Architectural Review voted 3-1 in favor of the latest design, clearing what's been the real obstacle for this project for years: not the zoning, not the unit count, the look of the thing. Previous architects tried and failed to get a design through review. Whatever changed with this round of plans, it worked, and it worked fast by downtown Charleston standards.

The building itself is sized to match: apartments, townhomes, ground-floor retail, and 324 parking spaces, all stacked into a footprint a preservation advocate on the board called one of the largest single building footprints ever proposed for downtown Charleston, she told the Post & Courier. That's not a compliment or a complaint, it's just the scale of what's coming to a stretch of Calhoun Street that's mostly known for smaller, older buildings.

The odd part is how little actually changed in the design between the rejected versions and this one. The unit count held steady, the footprint held steady, the basic bones of the project are recognizable from years back. What moved was the board's willingness to say yes to it.

Downtown housing supply is the debate Charleston keeps having with itself, and 300 new units on Calhoun Street is a real answer to it, whatever you think of the building's size. It still needs further design refinement before anything breaks ground, so this isn't a done deal. It's the first time in years this particular deal has looked like it might actually happen.

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