Home Care In West Columbia, SC

The Lexington County Coroner’s Office said that a missing teenager is the person whose body was found Wednesday at an Amazon distribution center in West Columbia.

Jerrold George Dejean, a 19-year-old Gaston resident, was found dead in a retention pond at the Amazon fulfillment facility, Coroner Margaret Fisher said Wednesday night.

Dejean was reported missing on Nov. 30, according to Fisher. On Dec. 5, the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department asked for the public’s help in its search for Dejean.

Fisher said it was about 1:20 p.m. when her office responded to the Amazon warehouse in the 4400 block of 12th Street in West Columbia.

Information about Dejean’s cause and manner of death was not available, but Fisher said an autopsy has been scheduled at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston on Friday.

No other injuries were reported.

It was not known from initial reports if Dejean was an Amazon employee.

A spokesperson for Amazon declined to provide more information and said the company was deferring all statements to the sheriff’s department, which is continuing to investigate the death along with the coroner’s office.

There was no word if foul play is suspected in Dejean’s death.

On Wednesday afternoon, the sheriff’s department posted on itsFacebook page that deputieshad responded to reports of a body “in a retention pond near the Amazon facility on 12th Street Ext.”

In a breaking news situation, facts can be unclear and the situation may still be developing. The State is trying to get important information to the public as quickly and accurately as possible. This story will be updated as more information becomes available, and some information in this story may change as the facts become clearer. Refresh this page later for more updated information.

This story was originally published December 13, 2023, 4:43 PM.

Trinity Partners, by way of Macon Lovelace, Roger Winn and Braden Shockley of Trinity’s Columbia office, represented the landlord, Cornerstone at Meeting, an affiliate of Estates & Cos., according to the release.

LS3P’s new office home will be comprised of over 11,000 square feet including a private, outdoor terrace located on the plaza level of a five-story mixed use building, the release stated. Its space will be designed to highlight its creativity through flexible and dynamic work spaces that foster collaborative engagement.

“This location, overlooking the iconic Gervais Street Bridge along the Congaree River, symbolizes the ‘connectivity’ of the greater Midlands community in which our people live and work,” Mary Beth Branham, the Columbia office leader and principal at LS3P, said in the release. “With 17-foot high windows providing dynamic views of downtown Columbia and the Capitol dome, a street-front presence along a main thoroughfare and direct access to our own outdoor patio and grand stair, this location also provides walkability to great restaurants, after-hour activities and breweries.”

With offices across South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, LS3P is a multi-disciplinary firm offering architecture, interior, and planning services to a wide variety of clients nationwide. Its Columbia office will be located within the 4 West community at 103 State St.

4 West is a Class A Mixed Use Development Project including 15,000 square feet of commercial space and 52 luxury apartment homes located along the Congaree River in West Columbia, according to the release. It is a part of the greater award-winning community known as Brookland that with 4 West now encompasses over 30,000 square feet of commercial space and 256 luxury, apartment homes. With the announcement of LS3P, the commercial space will be 100% leased, including the recent addition of Another Broken Egg Café alongside the original tenants of Gentleman’s Quarters Barbershop, Black Rooster, The WRKT, and Select Physical Therapy.

Construction for LS3P’s space will start in the near future with a projected delivery date in Summer 2024, just in time for its 20^th anniversary celebration, the release stated. Their space will encompass creative design facilitating their entrepreneurial nature with flexible and mobile workspace promoting creative engagement.

LS3P’s new home at 4 West and the greater Brookland community, mirrors their vision to create architecture that enriches communities through a culture of design excellence, expertise, innovation, and collaborative engagement, the release stated. The community boasts a diverse blend of unique uses, including public and private spaces, creating a great cross section of residences, tenants, and visitors. Research indicates individuals and tenants located in a vibrant, blend of unique uses demonstrate greater innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic competitiveness.

In last week’s West Columbia City Council meeting, an announcement was made about a new hotel that is to be built along Sunset Boulevard. The new building will be a Tru by Hilton on one side and a Home2 Suites on the other.

According to the same article by West Metro News, Infrastructure improvements are also in the works, with plans to install a new water + sewer line moving toward I-20.

Let’s recap some West Cola development news that’s in the works or will soon be wrapping up.

Earlier this month, West Columbia announced a major transformation + initiative, funded by the American Rescue Plan Act and SCDOT, to enhance the area’s visual appeal and improve access to shopping, dining, and entertainment.

The project is set to begin bidding early next year and plans to include:

Last week, we shared about a new pedestrian bridge coming near the Botanical Gardens entrance to the Riverbanks Zoo and Gardens on Mohawk Drive.

The new development project aims to enhance recreational opportunities by improving access to the Saluda River. Efforts are underway to establish an official project address and amenities include:

Back in December, we shared news about Langley Pointe, a new $60 million mixed-use development with Class-A housing and commercial development project coming to a 37.87-acre property along Sunset Boulevard.

The development at Langley Pointe is ongoing and will be a luxury, multifamily gated, community apartment.

Designed by local company LS3P, USC and Lexington Medical Center are partnering to build a new state-of-the-art nursing simulation center + teaching space. Construction began last year on the $19 million, 45,000-sqft development which will host the new Graduate Medicine Education (GME) program’s instructional space + patient care clinics.

The Brookland development, a $40+ million dollar development, has been under construction since 2017. The 4West apartments — the final phase of the Brookland development — is almost complete and has brought with it 52 residential units + about 15,000 sqft of commercial space.

Plan ahead: Another Broken Egg Café will be the first tenant and occupy almost 4,000 sqft of the new space and its name display has been installed. According to Google, it may be opening within the next few weeks.

A subsidiary of a Fortune 500 company has leased a speculative building in a Columbia industrial park.

Colliers South Carolina brokers Chuck Salley, Dave Mathews, Thomas Beard and John Peebles represented Saxe Gotha Spec LLC/Cypress Development in the lease of a 43,750-square-foot speculative industrial building at 225 Old Wire Road in West Columbia, to WESCO Distribution Inc., a news release stated.

”Our team was pleased to represent Cypress Development to lease its first speculative industrial development,” said Salley in the release. “While marketing this property for Cypress, we realized that there is pent-up demand for freestanding industrial properties of this size as they are a rare commodity in the current market.”

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The speculative building was delivered in May 2023. It is located along Interstate 26 in the Saxe Gotha Industrial Park which is home to Amazon, Dominion Energy and Nephron Pharmaceuticals, according to the release. Chick-fil-A and Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits also recently announced that they will be building new distribution facilities in the park.

“Having a track record of nearly 200 primarily retail build-to-suits, we are especially pleased to announce the recent completion of a 43,750-square-foot, speculative, ground-up industrial development in our hometown of Columbia,” said Tyler Baldwin, partner and co-founder of Cypress Development Partners LLC, in the release. “The industrial market in the Midlands region has exhibited extremely low vacancy rates over the past few years. This shortage of inventory — coupled with the recent Scout Motors plant announcement and other expansions — attracted us to this sector.

“With the assistance of the Colliers industrial brokerage team, we were able to secure a longer-term lease with WESCO, a Fortune 500 tenant, during the construction process. This building provides WESCO a standalone location with great access and visibility immediately adjacent to the Saxe Gotha Industrial Park. We pride ourselves on being responsive to the markets we serve.”

WESCO Distribution Inc. is owned by Wesco International Inc., a publicly traded Fortune 500 company headquartered in Pittsburgh, and is a leading provider of business-to-business distribution, logistics services and supply chain solutions, the release stated. 2021 sales were over $18 billion. Wesco offers a product and services portfolio of electrical and electronic solutions, communications and security solutions, and utility and broadband solutions.

The company employs over 18,000 people, maintains relationships with approximately 30,000 suppliers and serves approximately 150,000 customers worldwide, the release stated. Wesco operates approximately 800 branches, warehouses and sales offices in approximately 50 countries, providing a local presence for customers and a global network to serve multi-location businesses and multi-national corporations

As an effort to continue development in West Columbia, the city is working to enhance safety along the Highway One corridor.

WEST COLUMBIA, S.C. — The City of West Columbia was awarded a grant for traffic studies to boost pedestrian safety along Highway One.

West Columbia residents Nick Gavin and Kathryn Morit said walkability is a huge factor when deciding which bars and restaurants they visit. Having recently moved to West Columbia, Gavin said he enjoys being near downtown, but once he gets further from the river, Highway One becomes less walkable.

"Here, there's a nice pedestrian crossing where there's flashing lights, and cars can see you. I think that's really helpful. This is one of the few places that I've seen that has that," he said. "Then, you go along this road, and there's not too many places where you can cross or are very accessible."

According to West Columbia Mayor Tem Miles, that could soon change. The city was just awarded $288,000 from the U.S. Department of Transportation as part of a "Safe Streets For All" program. He said the money will be used to conduct safety surveys on pedestrian traffic.

"We're looking into some pop-outs to help folks know where the pedestrian crossings are," he said. "We're looking into incorporating some better places for pick up and drop off for ride share apps and services; we're just looking for ways to increase the safety of pedestrians along Highway One, where we intended to see further revitalized to be more of a retail corridor where you have more and more pedestrians moving about."

He said the study will be run through the entirety of Highway One in West Columbia as the city pushes to add more development to the Highway One corridor.

"There's nowhere more important than Highway One," Miles said. "It's the center of town, and it's the opportunity for us to go and really build out and have some additional retail. It's our best chance for that and to get a Main Street feel."

Moret said having more places to walk to and safer ways to get there would greatly help the area.

"If we can walk anywhere, that's so much better than worrying about Ubers, especially on a busy night with college students in town, and you have to worry about surcharges and Uber variabilities," she said. "But anywhere that we could walk would be better, so that's definitely a plus."

Miles did not give a timeline for the study project but says it should be started in the next year.