The Saluda Skyride:
A New Way Across the River

Every city has places that mark its eras. Columbia's newest one moves.

At Riverbanks Zoo and Garden, gondola cabins now glide quietly above the Saluda River, carrying families between the Zoo on one bank and the Botanical Garden on the other. The Saluda Skyride opened to the public on August 29, 2025, and it changed the way more than a million annual visitors experience one of South Carolina's most beloved attractions.

ECHERER, the Columbia commercial and industrial painting contractor that has served the Southeast since 1959, is proud to have been part of the project.

Two Campuses, One Footbridge, Thirty Years

Riverbanks opened in 1974 and grew into the largest zoo in South Carolina. In June 1995, it added the Botanical Garden on the opposite bank of the lower Saluda River, on land that had sat virtually untouched for a century. From that day forward, the two campuses were joined by exactly one route: an 800-foot brick-paved footbridge across the river.

For thirty years, that bridge was the only way over. The garden remained a quieter side of Riverbanks, beautiful and underseen, a long walk away from the lions and gorillas. Connecting the two halves properly became the central idea of Bridge to the Wild, the zoo's multi-year expansion along the lower Saluda, a plan projected to push Riverbanks' annual economic impact past $175 million and create roughly 500 new jobs for the Midlands.

The Skyride is the signature of that plan. Riverbanks' leadership describes Bridge to the Wild as being about forging connections: linking the Zoo and the Botanical Garden, bringing people closer to wildlife, and building a brighter future for the community. The next phases aim to bring animals, including endangered primates, red pandas, and tigers, to the garden-side campus by 2028. The gondola came first, because the connection itself was the point.

An Engineering Project in a Public Place

The Skyride is, by any measure, a serious piece of infrastructure. The electric-powered system spans more than 1,700 feet and runs roughly 90 feet above the Saluda, with towers planted on both banks. Leitner-Poma, one of the world's leading aerial-lift builders, designed and installed the gondola system, flying in a specialized installation team from Switzerland. A Columbia general contractor led the build, alongside the zoo's design and program-management partners, on what the project team described as an aggressive timeline.

And all of it happened inside an operating zoo. Construction at a public attraction is its own discipline: guests a fence-line away, animals nearby, school buses in the parking lot, and a calendar that never fully stops. The two new terminals had to rise, the towers had to cross the river, and Riverbanks had to keep being Riverbanks the entire time.

Where ECHERER Comes In

Look closely at the Skyride's two terminals and you will see what makes them unusual. These are not back-of-house machine rooms. They are guest spaces: soaring timber frames, broad canopies, steel and wood working together overhead, signage and surfaces that thousands of hands and eyes touch every operating day. The structure is heavy engineering. The finish is hospitality.

That finish is ECHERER's craft. As the painting and coatings contractor on the station structures, ECHERER's crews delivered the surfaces guests actually see and touch, work that has to stand up to Carolina sun, river humidity, and constant public use, and still look right on opening day and every day after.

It is the same discipline ECHERER has practiced for more than six decades, on projects that belong to everybody: the USC smokestack above the Columbia campus, stadium and university facilities, hospitals, parks, and now the cabins-in-the-sky at Riverbanks. When a project is part of the city's story, the standard is simple. Do it right, because everyone is going to see it.

A Landmark You Can Ride

The Skyride runs every operating day, included with zoo admission, and every one of its 19 cabins takes wheelchairs and strollers. Riverbanks reports that far more guests are now making it across to the Botanical Garden than ever before, four times as many by early counts, which is exactly what a connection is supposed to do.

Columbia has a history of turning utility into identity. A coal-plant chimney became the USC smokestack. An old riverbank became a world-class zoo. And a ride across the Saluda has already become the photo everyone takes. ECHERER is proud to have helped put it there.

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