The dome that once crashed through the roof of Columbia's Babcock Building during a 2020 fire is back where it belongs, capping a 19th-century asylum building that has since been reborn as 208 luxury apartments at the heart of the city's BullStreet District.
The Babcock Building was constructed in phases between 1857 and 1885 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, later known as the South Carolina State Hospital, according to The State. In 1969, the building was renamed for James Woods Babcock, who served as the hospital's superintendent from 1891 to 1914, the paper reports. Its central, cupola-capped portion was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981, per the same account.
Disaster struck in September 2020, when a fire gutted the building's central portion and sent its cupola crashing through the roof into the structure's center. The investigation into what sparked the blaze was still ongoing as of that same month, according to ABC Columbia, which also reported the building had been sitting vacant since 1996 — a timeline that conflicts with The State's account placing the building's vacancy in 2003.
Rebuilding a Landmark Piece by Piece
Restoring the Italian Renaissance Revival-style cupola took three years and crews working across two states. Builders in Texas and Indiana reconstructed the dome in three parts, and the finished piece — weighing 48,000 pounds — was hoisted back onto the building on August 18, 2023, the report notes. The reconstruction happened in stages: workers lifted the cupola's windowed base, known as the clerestory, into place on July 26, 2023, with the dome expected to follow in late August, according to the Post and Courier. The Babcock Building still retains its original ironwork on the windows, the report notes.
Figures on the conversion's price tag vary by source. The State described the overall renovation as a $60 million project that converted the building into 208 luxury apartments, while a separate report from the same outlet said developer Clachan Properties spent more than $60 million on the conversion. The Post and Courier, meanwhile, put the figure at more than $55 million for the same 208-unit project. The apartments opened in the summer of 2023, according to the paper's earlier reporting.
A District Built Around the Historic Campus
The Babcock Building sits within a broader redevelopment effort that began in 2015, transforming the historic hospital grounds into the mixed-use BullStreet District. Estimates of the district's footprint also differ: one report describes the Babcock Building and surrounding area as covering 178 acres, while another describes the broader former State Mental Hospital site being redeveloped as a 181-acre district.
The district now includes office buildings, apartments, restaurants and retailers such as Tupelo Honey, Starbucks and REI, along with GATHER COLA, a 32,000-square-foot food hall. Segra Park, a baseball park and event venue, anchors the district as well. The University of South Carolina is also building a health sciences campus with a neurological hospital on the property — a project a separate State report pegged at $300 million, with the neurological hospital planned for a future phase.
Together, the restored cupola and the surrounding build-out mark a milestone for a property that sat vacant for years before its current second act. The dome's return gives the century-old silhouette its familiar shape again, even as redevelopment of the rest of the former hospital campus continues.
