A seven-person steering committee of community and business leaders will meet today to begin guiding redevelopment of the 178-acre State Hospital campus on Bull Street.

They promised an open planning process with all of the stakeholders involved and ample opportunity for public input.

“Neighborhood leaders, business people and governments will be in there talking with planners about want they want,” committee member Joe E. Taylor said.

The committee was appointed by Gov. Mark Sanford, Mayor Bob Coble and Charles T. Cole, president of the influential non-profit Central Carolina Community Foundation.

Cole will serve as chairman.

Coble and Taylor said they envision a process called a “charrette,” in which a consulting firm hired by the committee would involve all interests in the site’s planning.

Also, any recommendation on zoning the consultants and the committee might make would go through the normal series of planning commission and City Council hearings, which also encourage public input.

In an unusual arrangement, Sanford and Coble tapped the foundation to form the committee to help balance the wishes of the city and the state.

Sanford wants a quick sale of the Bull Street campus, which is the largest, most valuable property to come on the market in downtown Columbia in decades.

Coble and City Council want development compatible with surrounding neighborhoods and businesses.

Sanford offered the compromise after the state and city clashed over an easement across the property for a drainage system and local business leaders complained they would be shut out of the planning.

“The goal is to get everybody together on the same page,” Sanford spokesman Will Folks said.

Chairman Cole appointed four committee members. The governor and the mayor, one each.

The committee’s charge is to hire consultants to develop a master plan for a mix of residential and commercial uses for the site. The consultants also will make recommendations about preservation of historic buildings.

The consultant and the committee then will recommend a plan to the city for zoning, development and preservation.

“It’s not our job to develop it,” Cole said. “It’s not our job to sell it. It’s our job to find the highest and best use of the property. We want a (financial) return for the state and a different type of return for the city.”

The committee is made up of business, government and community leaders. Both Sanford and Coble said they were pleased with the mix.

The meeting comes a day after groundbreaking for the “anchor” buildings of USC’s research campus, to be built along Blossom Street.

“Over the next five years we will see the two greatest economic catalysts to occur in Columbia since Reconstruction,” Taylor said.

The Bull Street tract is eight times larger than the old Central Corrections Institution property being developed on the Columbia Canal.

The property includes more than 50 structures, including the massive Babcock Building, which is in the National Register of Historic Places.

Reach Wilkinson at (803) 771-8495 or jwilkinson@thestate.com.