Historic Midlands school, abandoned for years, set to be replaced with new homes

A former Lexington County public school that has been mostly privately owned since 2008 is set to be leveled to make way for a new development in one of Cayce’s historic neighborhoods.

The project would bring 12 single-family homes to the roughly 2-acre lot at 800 Lexington Ave., which sits in the middle of the Avenues, a longstanding neighborhood that’s located close to the city’s riverwalk and River Arts District and a few minutes away from downtown Columbia.

The building on that site previously served as the Cayce Grammar School, which closed in 1976. The site was sold off 16 years ago by the Lexington 2 school district and now sits in visible disrepair, with vines growing up around its fencing, damage to its siding, and graffiti tagged onto one of its windows. Through the years, it’s looked rougher than it does now, with Google Maps showing a large portion of its roof caved in back in 2014. Large portions of the school have since been demolished and removed.

Local developer Cypress Commercial & Investment Real Estate had been looking to transform the site since it purchased roughly three-fourths of the property about six years ago. But the city, which purchased the other fourth in 2017, held off on selling its share while working with the developer to make sure the project was right for the city. Those talks had ramped up in recent weeks.

“The city has wanted to be careful with our project and others to make sure that the development is a good development and is well thought out and well planned,” said Cypress Partner Mark James. “We’ve had kind of an ongoing conversation with them about what that looks like and what it is, and things just started to come together at the beginning of this year.”

Officials said that in selling the city’s share of the property for a little over $150,000, it is fully recouping the amount it originally paid for it.

The exact timeline for the project remains unclear, as it will still need to clear zoning and hurdles with the city. Tim James, the city’s mayor pro tem, noted the property has 60 days to cancel the purchase barring those remaining approvals.

A plan, shared by Tim James, shows the Grammar School building being replaced by two rows of six houses — one facing Lexington Avenue, the other facing out to the other side of the property along Poplar Street — with an alley between the houses providing access.

The mayor pro tem, who presided over City Council’s unanimous decision Tuesday to sell the property in the absence of Mayor Elise Partin, pointed to one main reason why the process to sell the city’s portion and make way for the development took so long.

“Think about COVID. No further than that,” he said. “Cost of buildings, cost of projects, cost and time. The ability to be able to make the numbers work, the ability to be able to make sure that the proposed project is in line with what city officials think is right. All of those things, but I would put the hat mainly on COVID. A lot of us wanted to buy a car you know over the last five years, but it’s just now starting to come to fruition that you have time, money as well as the equipment that is available for a decent price.”

Mark James emphasized that the 12 homes, which are slated to vary between three and four bedrooms and three and three-and-a-half baths, will be designed to match the character of the neighborhood, which was mostly developed in the 1940s and ’50s.

Both Tim James and Byron Thomas, the city councilman who represents the neighborhood, said this was crucial to the development getting their approval.

“We’re hoping we’re hoping that the residents of Cayce will welcome these homes with open arms,” Thomas said, noting that this kind of development — repurposing already-developed land within the city — is advantageous as Lexington County and its municipalities continue to negotiate standards impacting residential developments that cities and towns like Cayce might look to add through annexation.

“With that property being vacant, this now gives people that are dying to live on the Avenues, I would say one of the hottest areas in the whole area to live in, a chance to move there,” Thomas added.

Both Thomas and Tim James emphasized a desire to recognize the history of the site, which the mayor pro tem said will be incorporated into the plans.

The Cayce Grammar School, which served students at least as far back as the 1930s, closed in 1976, with the site subsequently becoming home to the Trainable Mentally Handicapped Center, according to a video posted by the Cayce Historical Museum.

“It’s a very beautiful building, and I know the history of that building,” Thomas said. “As much as they want to keep it up, it will cost so much money for them to do some of the things they would like to do. And they couldn’t. They can’t save the building. There was no grants or anything, I guess historical grants, that they could get to to really put into that building.”

For Tim James, that history is less abstract.

“That property is near and dear to the community,” he said. “I myself attended grammar school there, and many of the neighbors that currently live in the Avenues either went to that school or they have children and even grandchildren that went to that school. This school is in disrepair. However, we all want to see something come back alive on that property. So this is the right thing to do to bring families into our community on a piece of property that raised so many people that are already in that community.”