The former Dominion Energy campus pictured on Sept. 6, 2024. (Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — A politically-connected South Carolina real estate developer paid $35 million for a sprawling Lexington County office campus. Now he’s leasing it to the state in a deal worth 11 times that over the next 20 years.
Columbia developer Bill Stern chairs the state Ports Authority’s governing board and has a history of regular donations to political campaigns — mostly Republicans but also some Democratic incumbents.
On July 10, he closed on the purchase of the 100-acre property that previously housed utility company Dominion Energy’s South Carolina offices, according to records updated this week by the Lexington County Recorder of Deeds.
The sale went through one week after lawmakers finalized the state budget, which included money for the lease.
Thanks to an agreement Stern inked in late 2023, with the blessing of lawmakers, he’s likely to recuperate his cost in less than four years.