1520 Main Street
2026 Palladium Tour | Life on Main Street
1520 Main Street
When Ohio native Tom Prioreschi moved from New Jersey to Columbia in 1998, he saw potential in a Main Street still dominated by boarded up storefronts, interspersed with a few low-traffic businesses that closed at five pm. Columbia Museum of Art had just opened in the 1500 block, and developer Ray Carter had already redeveloped the ground-floor storefront and second- and third-story apartments of the Canal Dime Savings Bank. Prioreschi’s Capitol Places LLC, however, went further, bringing new full-time residents to downtown through a series of historic renovations, starting with the Kress Building, Berry’s on Main, Silver’s, and the Barringer Building.
The thirty-two condos at 1520 Main Street, completed in 2006 at Capital Places V, would be different. It required the demolition of the Walgreen’s Drugs building, completed in 1941. At that time, Historic Columbia supported the decision, one that it wouldn’t necessarily make today.
Prioreschi and Carter’s historically sympathetic infill ultimately attracted buyers who wanted to live downtown—albeit in a new building. But the design itself also proved that the City Center Design Guidelines, developed by the city’s planning and preservation staff and adopted in 1998 to protect the city’s historic integrity, also effectively ensured cohesion between infill construction and historic building stock. In addition to creating the Design/Development Review Commission, the city added prescriptive guidelines that this property was required to adhere to in order to be approved. These included appropriate materials, height, massing, facade articulation, set back, and more. This historically sympathetic design resulted in a 2007 Historic Columbia Preservation Award for New Construction.
Capitol Places V, led jointly by the Carter and Prioreschi families, also physically tied together this building with the Canal Dime Savings Bank, creating the premier condo in the latter that can be seen at the next tour stop.
Above images courtesy City of Columbia City Center Design/Development Guidelines.
Owner Insights
Written by Joseph Bruce
After many years living in New York City and later in the Baltimore–Washington area, I began thinking about returning to South Carolina. I knew that if I came back it would be to Columbia. Of the state’s major cities, Columbia appealed to me most because of its cultural life — particularly the Columbia Museum of Art and the South Carolina Philharmonic — and the energy of downtown centered on Main Street.
As I began researching downtown living, one address quickly stood out: 1520 Main Street. Its location was exactly what I wanted — directly across the street from the Columbia Museum of Art and Boyd Plaza, right in the middle of Main Street. Studying the building’s floor plans, I realized there was really only one apartment that would work for me, Unit 4-D.
It sits on the top floor, where the ceilings are higher than in the units below. On the Main Street side there are two sets of west-facing French doors opening onto Juliet balconies overlooking the museum and Boyd Plaza. Because it is a corner apartment, there are windows along the south-facing side of the building. As a result, the unit is flooded with light throughout the day.
There was just one problem. It wasn’t for sale. When I began working with a real estate agent, I told her very clearly: don’t show me anything else. This is the apartment I want. The question was simply how we might persuade the owners to sell it.
And then something remarkable happened. Five days after that conversation, the apartment suddenly came on the market. We moved immediately. I made a cash offer, and within a single day we had a signed sales agreement. In fact, I bought the apartment without ever seeing it in person. But I knew the general layout well enough to be confident it could be made to work.
Once the purchase was complete, the next step was to rethink the interior so it would function the way I live. For that I turned to Steven Sutor, head of interior design at Chambers in Baltimore. Steven and I had worked together on two previous projects, so he already understood my love of books and art, the furniture I had collected over the years, and the importance of creating spaces where those things could live comfortably together.
One of the most significant decisions was to convert what had originally been the primary bedroom into the library. Pocket doors between the library and the living room allow the two spaces to open visually into one another. When I sit and read in the library, I can look through those doors into the living room and beyond through the French doors, creating a wonderful sense of depth and light.
My bedroom became the interior bedroom, tucked away from hustle and bustle of Main Street.
Another important change involved the long entry hall, which originally felt rather like a hotel corridor lined with doors. Steven divided that space into three distinct zones: an entrance space, a gallery space with shelves along one wall for books and art, and a final space that leads into the living room. Throughout the apartment we used jib doors, which blend into the wall surface and create uninterrupted wall space where art can hang.
Because I am not much of a cook, we chose to close in the kitchen rather than leave it open to the living room. That decision provided additional wall space and helped keep the main rooms visually calm and ordered.
In fact, that sense of order was central to the design. Every part of the apartment was carefully planned so that everything would have its place. The result is a space that is remarkably easy to live in — comfortable, practical, and highly organized.
The aesthetic reflects what felt right for an urban apartment. In Baltimore, Steven and I had designed a house with a very English character — chintz fabrics and toile wallpaper — perfect for that Colonial Revival house but not for a city apartment. For this space, we created something more tailored and restrained. Steven knew all the furniture I had, helped decide what to keep, where it should go, and how certain pieces should be recovered to suit the new setting. The choice of wallpaper is a perfect example of that change. In the bedroom we used Brunschwig & Fils Les Touches, a bold, graphic pattern very different from traditional toile.
The art has also evolved with the move to Columbia. I have edited my collection, adding works by local artists such as Laura Spong and Laurie McIntosh, and recently commissioned a large abstract painting by Sonya Diimler for the library.
Living across the street from the Columbia Museum of Art has also deepened my connection to that institution. I now serve on its board of trustees and recently gave the museum my collection of Georgian porcelain.
What has emerged is exactly the kind of urban apartment I had imagined: filled with light, surrounded by books and art, and directly across the street from the museum that first drew me back to Columbia.
Images courtesy Jospeh Bruce
