City Council - Regular Meeting

to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We'll take a minute, let everybody who came just for the public hearing filter out.

I don't know.

Tonight, for the announcements, I'd like to take a moment of silence for condolences for the Columbia Police Officer, Christopher DeLong, who was tragically killed on August 29th. If you would please join me in a moment of silence for him. Please keep him and his family in your thoughts and your prayers. Please also remember Officer David Dymock, who was injured in that same incident. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers and keep his family in your thoughts and prayers as well. We have a new intern, Ms. Kirsten Miller. She's a sophomore at USC. She's studying political science as her major. Ms. Miller, are you here? She's in the back. Our interns do great jobs and we're glad you're here with us. Anything from anybody on council? Anything from staff? Moving down to presentations and recognitions, we'll take up item 6.1, which is a presentation recognizing Officer Daniel Farhat for winning the J.P. Baum Award at the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy for class BLE861. We'll hear from Chief Boyce.

Hey, good evening, Mayor and Council. Good to see everybody. I'm gonna ask Steve Cohen and Tim James up here, they're part of my foundation board, to help me present our congratulations to Daniel Farhat. He did win the J.P. Strom Award for his class, named after longtime Chief of SLED, J.P. Strom, and that's given out to the criminal justice officer candidate that has the highest overall academic average uh in their eight weeks of training at the south carolina criminal justice academy along with all the passing of all the proficiency examinations that they have to do out there as well so daniel farhat was the winner of that award i'm proud of this accomplishment for him i'm proud to have him here at west columbia police department i think it speaks a lot on the commitment and uh dedication starting straight from the get uh out of the gate on on where we're at we're here at west columbia and and again i'm gonna ask um Tim James and Steve Cohen to help present an award for him on behalf of our Police Officers Foundation.

Thank you, Chief. Mayor and Council, certainly our very esteemed leadership of West Columbia, and most importantly to those folks that are here tonight attending, my name is Tim James. I have been a part of the West Columbia Police Officers Foundation since its inception. And that was February of 2008 when we began. And we came before council, we came before leadership and said, you guys do an amazing job of being able to keep the law enforcement officers equipped with the equipment that they need to have to be able to do the job that they do throughout the city of West Columbia. But what the foundation wanted to do is over and above. And when I say over and above, there are so many things that just keep the morale going in a law enforcement division that maybe it does not fit into a regular budget. So since that time, over the past 18 years now, we've had the opportunity to be able to present many things. Every single year, we have a banquet for the officers and their spouses, which is so very, very important. We all spend a lot of time away from home, but probably not more than that with our service and law enforcement. And whenever they can come together for a banquet with their spouses, it's a wonderful time. In addition to that, we also have many times throughout the year times that we can have a picnic with the spouses and the kids. We've had pop-up lunches here at the police department. We've also bought firearms and equipment and things like that that may be of an immediate necessary. However, I say again that this council and the leadership here always make sure that these officers are having exactly what they need. The members of the West Columbia Police Officers Foundation, which we refer to as WCPUF, is Ashley Atkinson with Founders Federal Credit Union, Chuck Underhill of House of Rayford, Steve Cohen, of course, who is with us tonight, needs no introduction because Steve is always around helping everybody, Andrew Bumgardner of Savage Yell Crafts, Richard Westbrook of South State Bank, Akira Sellers of Brick House Coffee, certainly Captain Farr serves as a liaison with us between the officers and the foundation, and the chief is there as well. Over the many, many years that this has been in place, we have never had a graduate of the Basic Law Enforcement Academy to be able to win the J.P. Strom Award. This is the very first time. For those who are not in law enforcement, when you go through the academy, you're in pure constant challenging with everybody who is in the academy with you. And you are steadily trying to achieve the very best. And when you are the very best, you're recognized with that at the very end of the time. This time we had Officer Farhat come out with being the J.P. Strom Award winner. And when the chief called a couple of weeks ago, he said, what in the world can we as a foundation do? Well, you know better than all, law enforcement officers are always the one who loves just one more firearm. And we are so very, very happy to be able to present, I'm going to allow you to do this, to present Daniel Farhat with this gift certificate that will be the purchase of a Glock 43X, my dear friend.

Congratulations. I was hoping to hand you a real gun.

I wanted to close by saying this, that in addition to many thankful residents of West Columbia and businesses throughout, we continue to raise monies. But we also do it through 5K runs. We do it through golf tournaments. Our next one is October the 23rd. And while I also recognize all the fun things that we do, I think one of the very most important things that we do is we put enough funds to the side Mayor, as you mentioned, we just lost a Columbia police officer. Last month, we lost a deputy in Lexington County. It tells us that what can happen at home. We don't want it to happen at home, but if it ever does, we are prepared to go to that spouse and to present him or her with a check that will get them through the dire time that would be in front of them. We are so proud as a foundation to be able to have that. And we ask you as residents of West Columbia to give of your heart for the officers. Thank you.

Officer Farhat, we are incredibly proud of you and your achievement. More importantly, we are thankful that you've gone into law enforcement. It's a noble undertaking, and we're incredibly thankful that you've chosen to do it with the City of West Columbia's Police Department. We appreciate you. Mayor, can we get a picture with you? Yes. Moving down to item 6.2, we'll take up a presentation recognizing the City of West Columbia and the Fire Department for receiving designation as 2026 Fire Safe Community from Fire Safe South Carolina and the South Carolina Office of the State Fire Marshal. Chief Solomon.

Good evening. Good evening. Sorry, that says 2026. It's 2025, but we were awarded in 2026. So for the seventh consecutive year, the city of West Columbia was recognized as a fire safe community. And that's as a result of the initiatives that have been put forth for the West Columbia Fire Department that allows for us to actually put programs forward for the vulnerable population. Also, the smoke alarms that you see that we installed, those are all part of a program. and we have what we have in the state of cyclone the fire marshal office has these requirements that we must meet and they're data driven so what every everything that you see that we do from every smoke alarm every ceo alarm every every car that we run is centered around data driven initiatives and that's to make sure that we have a safe community what this has done is to put us in rare air we're one of the few uh cities that can say we hold a class one uh iso rating along with seven consecutive years since since this program's inception in the state of south carolina so that is a great testament to the support by you all council administration and the work of our firefighters to serve these citizens thank you chief anyone we appreciate all the great work y'all do year in year out thank y'all thank you

Moving down to item 6.3, we'll take up a presentation of Government Finance Officers Association Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting. We'll hear from Mr. Justin Black. Good to see you.

Good to see you, Mayor. Thank you, Council. This achievement is the highest achievement that a governmental agency can receive in financial reporting. This is the 35th consecutive year the city has received this award. Just really appreciative of our finance team who strives for excellence and is committed every day to receiving this award every year. Thank you to council and administration for your providing resources and your support and recognition for this award.

We thank you for all your hard work, for your team's hard work, keeping our books straight and finding this money when we need it. We appreciate all you do.

Thank you.

Moving down to items... 6.4, we'll take a presentation from Riverbank Zoo on the redevelopment floating zone request. We'll hear from Mr. Tommy Stringfellow. Tommy, good to see you.

all right good evening tom if you don't mind introduce everybody just for the room i will it's going to be part of my presentation i just wanted to say thank you mayor and council and staff for giving us the opportunity to present this information tonight i am tommy stringfeller president ceo riverbanks Zoo and Garden, and I have with me to really help explain all of what we've been doing, the timelines, and a lot of the details of what we're excited about showing is Lachlan Wooten, our Chief Strategy Officer with Riverbank Zoo and Garden, and then Maggie Stackley, LCK, who is our managing partner with the pre-construction and construction process. Dale Stegemeyer with LCK, we're not gonna let him speak tonight. And then I think most everybody knows Andy Cabe, who makes everything happen, our Director of Horticulture. Appreciate the opportunity to give you an update. If I remember, there were a handful of y'all in 2019 that I met with to give you a glimpse of what the vision we wanted to present. Moving forward, here we are seven years later, and I think I made the promise that part of the vision was being able to integrate our master plan in yours, and that was to ensure that the community would have accessibility and visibility of the beautiful rivers we have, Saluda River especially. as we move forward and I know that's one of the pride of our communities and having riverbanks on both sides in Richland and Lexington County, especially in the city of West Columbia. We now have a presentation to show you that gives you the most recent updates as we move forward and obviously we'll be working with your planning commission. Lachlan, if you'd like to walk them through the presentation.

It would be my pleasure. Lachlan Wooten. We are really excited to share this video with you. And it is a stunning visualization of the projects that we are so excited about that will continue to elevate your zoo to a national level. and continue to add the educational and the benefits to this community in addition to the tourism driving and in addition to just really being a point of pride in this entire community. So before I launch this video, I do want to sort of set the stage for those of you who have been to Riverbanks and are familiar and give you a little bit of sense of where we are. physically on campus. So when I start this video, on the left-hand side, you will see the existing Saluda River Bridge. And everything after that is new. So we will be standing on the Saluda River Bridge, effectively floating above it, with the city of West Columbia in front of us and the city of Columbia behind us. So with that in mind, you will see a restaurant and a bit of a small trail that leads to this restaurant and elevated bridge. And all of that is new. So I just wanted to give you some context, whether you had or had not been to riverbanks in a while. That is where we began. So there's the Saluda River Bridge. What you see here is a restaurant on the river. gives you beautiful sweeping views of the Saluda River itself, and it gives guests an unparalleled opportunity to dine right near the river. It also gives a really unique opportunity for an evening rental of this space for everyone in the community. There's outdoor seating and indoor seating, and that boardwalk around the front carries you straight into a brand new primate facility. This is one of the things that we are really, really thrilled about. We currently have partnerships with DNR and Fish and Wildlife federally to rehome species who are impacted by wildlife trafficking. So this facility is going to actually solve a problem that is impacting South Carolina hugely. It's a major port state. So we'll be able to help house these animals and give guests unparalleled opportunities to see these really unique creatures. The boardwalk will continue elevated up this hillside. This is the existing hillside, but if you've been there, There's a lot of invasive species, and there's a lot of destabilized soil. This project not only gives us wonderful opportunities to view new animals, it gives us the opportunity to bring back native species and stabilize this entire hillside.

This is the West Columbia side, right?

This is the West Columbia side, still. Yes, this is the boardwalk that takes you up that hill. So what you see in front of you, the elevated boardwalk continues all the way up the hill, and then it passes right by this beautiful red panda facility, indoor and outdoor viewing. You can see these red pandas with new air conditioned space that benefits both guests and pandas. And this travels right out to a plaza with guest amenities and a Cenaris vulture. And then our path turns to on-grade. That on-grade path takes you right up to a tiger breeding facility. which again allows us the opportunity to not only have amazing experiences that we as residents, and I know my kids, super excited about seeing tiger cubs, but it also gives guests the opportunity to see what it means up close to care for a tiger. In this viewing shelter, there's a unique opportunity to see how keepers actually train these tigers in human care. That facility carries around the corner into a much larger open tapped tiger habitat with a viewing pool and a great nose to whiskers viewing experience. And it is directly adjacent to the West Campus Skyride Plaza. So if you are entering from the West Columbia parking lot on Botanical Parkway, you will immediately have this really beautiful experience. This entire hillside development offers truly stunning views. of the ecology that exists here, right in the middle of the Midlands, as well as giving a really unique opportunity for families and visitors of all ages to come out and experience this. We will take some other questions about this, and we have some additional pictures. But Maggie is going to give you a bit of a lay of the land, so you can understand how that actually, she'll give you the aerial shot that shows you how that really works in the West Columbia property. and give you more information on the impact and the details on how it aligns with your strategic plan.

Thank you so much. So it is infinitely difficult to go after Laughlin in that presentation and certainly give you a more horizontal view. But for context, I'll start right to left, kind of the same way that we went through the video, and present what you see from an aerial perspective that you saw in the video. So obviously you see the bridge that Laughlin highlighted coming across the Saluda River. Immediately out to the side of that is the restaurant that has the beautiful views. And as you continue along the path, you'll see, let's see if I can give you all a cursor.

Can you all see that?

Okay, this is the primate habitat that Laughlin highlighted. There are three of those surrounding the holding building. And then this jagged path that you see traverses the hillside and brings you up to the Red Panda building. And then as Lachlan noted, there's also the plaza there with a restroom facility and Sineris Vulture. From there, we leave the elevated pathway and get more on grade. where we're passing by the two tiger habitats. One is full mesh for the breeding facility, the holding building kind of tucked back away a little bit, and then the full size habitat before arriving back to the West Columbia Plaza with the sky ride, the botanical gardens, and the Magnolia Center. Next, in preparation for presenting our planning to you more comprehensively, I wanted to talk about how this project conforms with the redevelopment overlay district that you guys put forth in 2024. Actually, I think it's fun to highlight that you guys call this the most potentially transformational project for West Columbia, so really proud to present it in that light. From that standpoint, this is centrally located to the redevelopment zone. As you see, there's kind of a little blurb here from your own presentation that shows where Riverbanks is relation to this district. Obviously, there's great connectivity to the Saluda River. We're providing a restaurant and recreation for the community. as well as enhanced landscaping working very closely with andy cape and the landscape architects as lachlan noted to reforest this area with native species and then finally a really great part of this development is the job creation i'll talk a little bit more about that on the next slide okay all right so adherence to the goals of the redevelopment overlay district we are very tightly following your guidelines the first that i think is really important to highlight is the economic development aspect this development is planned to provide an economic impact of about 175 million dollars a year and creation of up to 500 jobs from construction through operations so Um, pretty big numbers there. Um, also the zoo has continually been a regional tourism destination, but this kind of, uh, provides an additional thing for people to come, hopefully stay a little bit longer since it's not going to be quite as easy to see the zoo in a day. Um, obviously the Riverside redevelopment is a big point for West Columbia, and this will be our first official Riverside restaurant, um, which is exciting. The next is the recreation and outdoor activities, pedestrian pathways. And then I'll let Laughlin expound a little bit more on the conservation and preservation side of it that was important to the overlay district.

I hope it goes without saying that that is the heart of what we do. And that's why all of this matters. And it's not just the conservation and preservation of plants and animals, but preservation of what this community has seen in riverbanks over 55 years and what this community has really asked for us to steward, because that's all we do is steward the vision. So we are really honored to be able to do that in addition to really ensuring that the ecology that exists on that hillside is protected. So that is obviously core to what we do all the time, but I think it bears repeating.

And in preparation for wrapping up our presentation, I wanted to share the timeline for the project because I think we get a lot of questions about when is it going to be here. So the rest of this year is focused on design development, permit submittal to your team, and market engagement. So a general contractor has already been identified for the project and they will be actually approaching the subcontractor market to get them engaged shortly. excited about that beginning in 2027 we'll focus on planning and preservation first that's a very important topic prior to construction mobilization and logistics and then toward the end of the year we'll start to see a big effort in site work and foundations for all these buildings that we highlighted In 2028 is when we'll start to see a lot of these buildings become vertical. You'll notice that the restaurant on the elevated podium will be visible in several of the other buildings. Following that, we'll get more engaged in the building systems, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing, and wrapping up the envelopes. And then at the end of 2028, we'll complete the finishes and fully complete the landscaping effort. Um, which leads us to 2029. Um, there's a couple of important things that happen, have to happen before opening to the public, um, animal acclimation and staffing keeper training will come before that. And then they'll sure there'll be lots of big announcements. So thank you so much.

To wrap up, I'd be remiss to say thank you to the fire department while they're here. Whether they wanted to be involved in this project, they are now. Especially when we put the sky ride across the river, they've been instrumental in working with us and making sure it's safe. And also thank you guys for being part of that. And then we have already noticed as we invited y'all out to ride the sky ride, that was the first key piece was being able to transport enough people back and forth because we know this will be a huge piece of our expansion in the future and we want to make sure those that visit on the zoo side have the opportunity to get back and forth, but give a lot of access on the garden side, which will soon become the west entrance or west campus because now the animals will be there, so it's not just the garden. It's zoo and garden. in the future. And we have already noticed a shift in our attendance and the number of those that are entering in on the West Columbia side, simply because I think they've figured out that as soon as they park, and parking is plenty and not as crazy busy on the I-2026 side, that they can jump on the SkyRide and be into the zoo and or get back uh fairly quickly and they'll be seeing the construction happen and so we've already seen some of the trends happen so we're excited about the fact that we we need to have both parking facilities available when this construction is complete so and having access to this beautiful landscape as you know on the zoo side it's pretty flat on the garden side it's as you'll meander up the boardwalk you'll have some incredible views of the river and incredible views of downtown and the foliage and as we said some of the native species that we're able to to replant it there is going to be really good so thank you for the opportunity to present this we'll keep you updated as we go along but wanted to see if there are any questions that we can answer at this point

Yeah, thank y'all for the great presentation. Y'all do a wonderful job delivering a true world-class facility and experience. Never hurt anybody with a bad experience from going to the zoo. I mean, it really is a world-class experience. Appreciate all y'all do out there. I know we had talked about the possibility of making the restaurant publicly accessible for non-ticket patrons. Is that something that you think is still a possibility?

Yes. I think as I promised before, obviously having the expanded amenities for those that buy tickets to the zoo, we need, as we see the attendance continue growing, we need the places for them to eat and use the restrooms and such. So during the day, obviously, that's going to be critical. In the evenings, we know it'll be a really cool rental center. So there'll be opportunities for us to rent that to generate the revenue to operate. But we also know that there'll be nights or evenings that maybe we reserve a certain night for the public to make reservations. And we're working on transportation on how to get them from the parking lot to the restaurant. But that could be the cool part of the experience. back and forth but um we have some great ideas and we'd love to figure that out because we want uh everybody that has the opportunity that lives in the area to experience the restaurant uh day or night i have a i have a question the so i was looking at the layout it looks like y'all are kind of following a real steep drop off is there going to be awesome views like throughout that walk yeah there will be we're on i would say maybe 170 feet of elevation shift

from top to bottom, right? And so that ADA, that is a fully ADA path, that's why it's a little bit long and winding, but it also gives you some beautiful views. So at the highest point, the elevated boardwalk, I'm gonna estimate 25 feet is probably the highest point.

So just for context, I think 170 feet of drop within walking through this expansion, I think the amount of drop from the river to the ocean is less than that. It's dramatic. That gives you an idea about how cool the views are going to be.

If you've ever walked up that tram road, you've felt all 175 of those feet. Oh, yeah.

I've done it a few times. I've got a four-year-old. We love the zoo. This looks like a great plan.

As a wheelchair pusher, you do plan to maintain?

It is, yep, it's fully ADA compliant. There are a couple of places where it's ramped and then flat, but we really even tried to avoid that. But there are a couple of places just related to some places that we want to protect that we will be doing a bit of ramping, but it's all ADA.

Wonderful, thank you. Anyone else? Thank y'all for what y'all do. Thank you. Thank you for the support.

We appreciate it.

Moving down to Section 7, I will welcome a joint motion for approval of the minutes from the regular council meeting dated August 4, 2026, and the special council meeting dated August 27, 2026. Is there a motion? So moved. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing none at this time, if you're in favor, please raise your hand. They are unanimously approved. Why don't we do this? I've drank a bunch of coffee and a bunch of water and eaten all my supply of mints, so let's take a few minutes before we get started up with the second reading. Let's take five minutes. We'll reconvene. Well, let's just call it 7.30. That's eight minutes.

I gave you the marketing talking point right there.