Clemson Council Weighs 752-Bed Student Housing Complex to Replace Tiger Boulevard Best Western

CLEMSON, S.C. — A seven-story student housing and retail complex could replace the Best Western hotel on Tiger Boulevard, under a redevelopment proposal Clemson City Council took up this week as the university town continues to reshape its commercial corridors near campus.

The proposal, filed for the roughly 4-acre site at 1310 Tiger Boulevard near the intersection with U.S. Highway 123, calls for a 752-bed multifamily complex marketed to students, more than 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space and a 566-space parking garage, according to city planning documents and reporting by The Journal, the Seneca-based newspaper that covers Pickens and Oconee counties.

Toll Brothers-linked applicant

The application lists Doug Smythe with Toll Brothers Development as the project’s applicant of record. Toll Brothers’ apartment-development arm has since been folded into Kennedy Wilson, which has taken an increasingly active role in Clemson’s student-housing pipeline in recent years, according to published reports on the project.

Part of a broader wave of redevelopment

The Tiger Boulevard proposal arrives as council continues to wrestle with a separate, long-contested plan for a 555-bed complex at 201 Pine Street, which has swung between approval and rejection over consecutive readings this year, The Journal reported. Both projects reflect the intense demand for purpose-built student housing near Clemson University, which has driven a string of redevelopment proposals along the city’s commercial arteries in recent years, replacing older hotels, retail strips and garden apartments with denser, mixed-use product.

Traffic concerns dominate public input

Residents have raised concerns about the cumulative effect of new density on Tiger Boulevard and Highway 123. Several residents told planning commissioners the highway “cannot handle additional traffic,” according to reporting on the broader wave of student-housing applications moving through the city’s review process this year.

What it means for commercial real estate

If approved, the Tiger Boulevard project would mark one of the largest ground-up redevelopments of an existing hospitality property in Pickens County in recent memory, converting a roadside hotel into a mixed-use asset anchored by retail space and structured parking — a model increasingly favored by developers targeting the corridor between downtown Clemson and the university’s main entrance. The project still needs to clear additional readings before council, along with site plan review, before construction could begin.

Clemson City Council typically meets on the first and third Monday of each month at Clemson City Hall, 1250 Tiger Blvd.