The owner of a car dealership formerly located in West Columbia says he was forced out by aggressive code enforcement. The city says his business license was pulled after a pattern of zoning violations forced its hand.

Now that property, located along one of the city’s busiest roads, is set to be the site of a new shopping center.

A large sign that went up late last month in front of the property at 1410 Sunset Blvd. near St Andrew’s Lutheran Church announced that it will be home to New Brookland Crossing.

Xan Taylor with Congaree Construction, which is set to build the small strip mall once occupants have been nailed down, said it will have room for up to six tenants and will look to draw luxury retailers or perhaps dental and medical practices.

“Not smoke shops. Not Dunkin’ Donuts. Not not drive-thru restaurants and stuff like that,” Taylor said.

That notion of diversifying development in the area lines up with the vision that many city leaders have for West Columbia’s segment of Sunset Boulevard/U.S. 378, which starts in the River District near the Gervais Street Bridge, crossing Interstate 26 and going all the way to Interstate 20 and touching the eastern edge of the town of Lexington. The thoroughfare is ringed with some large residential neighborhoods and is a key connector for many commuting to downtown Columbia from Lexington and other parts of the county.

The stretch of Sunset between the River District and I-26 is home to a handful of small used car dealerships like Entity Motors, which recently vacated the space now claimed by the future New Brookland Crossing. The stretch also has a similar number of vape/smoke shops. West Columbia City Councilman and real estate broker David Moye said leaders have discussed options such as a new zoning overlay to make sure that these and other types of businesses that propagate along such busy roads don’t dominate the landscape.

“There’s frustration in the community because It seems like most of the new things that get built are within a very narrow set of things, you know, vape shops, quick lubes, car washes, gas stations,” Moye said. “The community and council is starting to get unified about our desire to see some more diversity in businesses that are moving along these corridors.”

All the city leaders The State spoke with said no special actions have yet been taken to shape future development along Sunset Boulevard, and no changes to zoning or code enforcement have been made in recent years that would impact car dealerships.

But Entity Motors owner Sameer Mahd said he feels he was forced out by the city to make way for new development.

His dealership, which operated around a small house categorized by West Columbia as “commercial built as residential,” got its business license without a problem the first two years he was there. When he went to renew it in 2023, Mahd said he was told he had to improve the paving of his lot and do away with the grass that was poking through. He said he spent almost $17,000 to make improvements in an attempt to meet the city’s standard.

Communication after that was spotty, he said, until he was told in August that if he didn’t have cars off the lot by September, then they would be towed away.

Mahd has since moved Entity Motors to Leesburg Road in Columbia, but he said he took a big hit, having to pay to store his almost 150 cars for about five months until he could move them to his new spot. He still has cars in storage, as the new location doesn’t have room for them all, he said.

“I make good money,” he said. “But in the last six, seven months, I lost all the money I made for two years.”

A new type of development

City staff and elected leaders said they were forced to take action against Entity Motors after a history of repeated zoning violations.

“We bent over backward to help that guy,” said West Columbia Mayor Tem Miles. “We tried to work with him everywhere we could, and he just refused to clean his place up and to come into compliance.”

The mayor said he doesn’t know much about the development that’s coming to the parcel now, but “it sounds a lot better than a half-vacant car lot on gravel. I think that’s a drastic improvement over the current status quo.”

West Columbia City Councilman Jimmy Brooks was harsher in his assessment of Entity Motors.

“It had turned into basically a junkyard,” he said. “There were cars broken down. They were parked all over the place. And I guess my question to somebody that may not like that development is, ‘Would you rather see a junkyard sitting there, or would you rather see what appears to be a nice shopping center going in?’”

The mayor said discussions the city has had about guiding development along that stretch have centered on potentially adding space requirements for the types of buildings that go in.

“You could have one that starts out as a doctor’s office, and if the winds change, it could become a massage parlor. It could become a check cash-in place. It could become something wonderful, right?” Miles said. “I’m more concerned about the form and about the type of buildings than I am about the usage which may be going into them.”

Brooks said he worries about attempting to curtail the rights of property owners to build as they wish on their land. On top of that, he said he feels the process to shape the stretch of Sunset between the River District and I-26 is pretty much done. He’s concerned about the stretch between I-26 and I-20, which is far less developed.

“I think the potential out there is tremendous,” he said, noting the high traffic in that spot.

Per the S.C. Department of Transportation, the stretch of Sunset between the River District and I-26 sees about 23,400 cars per day, while the stretch between I-26 and I-20 sees about 33,500.

“This section between 20 and 26 is pretty much, for the most part, undeveloped, except for some hospital stuff,” he said. “That’s more of a clean slate than what’s down the other way.”