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Region’s industrial growth booming, creates area jobs
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
In April, Tri-State Hydraulics Inc., a hydraulics components manufacturer based in Charleroi, Pa., announced plans to open a Moncks Corner facility that would create 12 new jobs.
It will operate under the name Industrial Hydraulics of Charleston in an existing 5,000-square-foot building on U.S. Highway 17A and is slated to open in mid-May.
Tri-State Hydraulics became the fourth company this year to announce the beginning of industrial operations in the Lowcountry. During 2004, the Charleston Regional Development Alliance, which recruits businesses to the region, lured about 10 manufacturers to the Lowcountry, including the $560 million, 645-employee Vought-Alenia aircraft parts manufacturing center being built in North Charleston and the $2.2 million, 100-employee Summerville Preferred Partners truck-parts manufacturer, which occupies a facility in Dorchester County.
The company assembles chassis for North Charleston-based emergency-vehicle maker American LaFrance. Summerville Preferred Partners is based in Salem, Va.
Experts say that the region’s industrial community can expect further growth during the next few years thanks to the strength and expansion of the Charleston port and the Lowcountry’s quality of life.
Roughly, an additional 2 million square feet of industrial real estate space has been proposed to boost the area’s more than 18 million-square-foot inventory, according to commercial real estate firm Colliers Keenan’s 2004 year-end report.
So far this year, the market continues to sizzle.
“The industrial market remains very active through the first quarter and does not appear to be slowing down,”Colliers Keenan broker Terry Ansley says. “I would say that proposed construction has increased by a few hundred thousand square feet since our year-end report.”
Most of the industrial market growth will occur in the Cainhoy area, in and around Palmetto Commerce Park in North Charleston and in the Summerville-Jedburg area, Ansley says.
Cainhoy thrives because it is close to the port, the Vought-Alenia plant will attract more industry to the 1,120-acre Palmetto Commerce Park, home of American LaFrance, and Summerville and Jedburg will see more industrial growth because of cheaper land values and proximity to Interstate 95.
John Tison, president of Commercial Carolina real estate company, agrees, “the Charleston area is going to see more Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies coming here.”
In preparation for this growth, Commercial Carolina is increasing its staff from four to seven and is moving from offices at 177 Meeting Street to larger quarters in Unity Alley in May.
“We already have a strong industrial base, and the port is doing extremely well,” local developer Eugene Blanton says, explaining the factors driving the region’s industrial growth.
In December 2004, the number of 20-foot containers the Charleston port handled was 36% more than in December 2003, pushing container volume during the first half of fiscal 2005 to record levels, port officials announced in January.
Blanton says three prospective industrial tenants have shown interest in his 13-acre Landmark Business Park, which he developed last year at the entrance to Palmetto Commerce Park. He estimates that the region is currently working with about 15 industrial prospects.
The Lowcountry’s average industrial land cost is $72,000 an acre, according to the Colliers Keenan report. The average sales price is $36 a square foot. The average lease rate for buildings 75,000 square feet and more is $3.49 per square foot per year, $4.49 per square foot per year for buildings between 25,000 square feet and 75,000 square feet, and $5.20 per square foot per year for buildings between 10,000 square feet and 25,000 square feet.
Among the factors luring Tri-State Hydraulics to the Lowcountry is the Charleston area’s access to South Carolina’s growing industrial community, according to Dan Dennis, Tri-State Hydraulics’ general manager.
“We already have a strong customer base in the Charleston area and see several opportunities for additional business throughout the state,” says Dennis. “We definitely will come in and hit the ground running.”
With companies like Tri-State Hydraulics setting up shop in the region, the future is rosy for the Lowcountry’s industrial market, says Ted Creech, chairman of the Charleston Regional Development Alliance.
“As our region’s manufacturing base grows, we are becoming even more attractive to these high-end suppliers,” Creech says.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer at the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.
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