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Belle Hall Parkway sees office construction boom
Three new office developers cite investment opportunities, area’s marketability
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
At the beginning of Belle Hall Parkway, off Long Point Road in Mount Pleasant, three class “A” office developments are being built within a stone’s throw of one another. As office parks go, the developments are not huge, but the spate of construction along that segment of road reflects the Lowcountry’s robust commercial real estate market.
On the parkway’s south side, local developers J.B. DeCamilla and Verner Jordan are building a $7.6 million, 2.6-acre office park marketed by the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Co.
Construction crews have cleared the site, which will contain four 8,000-square-foot brick buildings, each two stories. Space leases for less than $20 a square foot and sells for $229 a square foot. Construction on the buildings will begin in about 60 days, and the entire project will be completed in roughly two years, DeCamilla says.
The project has already drawn the attention of businesses seeking office space. “We’ve received inquiries from an appraisal services company and from health care companies,” DeCamilla says.
The parkway’s north side is the site of the forthcoming Moultrie Office Park, a 7.7-acre development consisting of 10 lots, ranging from $402,000 to $580,000. The lots can support two-story office buildings as large as 12,000 square feet. Charleston-based Coastal Commercial Brokerage Group is marketing the property and has two of the lots under contract. The business park is the creation of an investment group headed by Coastal Commercial’s Dan Henderson.
Nearly 100 prospective buyers have shown interest in Moultrie Office Park since the lots were publicized six months ago, Henderson says.
Also on the north side, on the corner of Long Point Road and Belle Hall Parkway, two office buildings are in the works. Infinity Development Group is offering a two-story, 6,600-square-foot building. Behind it, Hamilton Development is building a single-story, 4,550-square-foot structure. Both units, scheduled for completion in August, will house office condominiums. Space is selling for more than $200 a square foot.
Bob Nutall Jr., a broker with Daniel Island-based Anchor Commercial Real Estate Services, which is marketing both buildings, says it was not long before office seekers began making inquiries.
“We sold the back building when it was just a slab,” Nutall says.
The Belle Hall area of Mount Pleasant is a high-growth area, and Belle Hall Parkway’s developers use this as a selling point. Between the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census, the number of households in the Belle Hall area grew by 169%, DeCamilla says. Since the last census, the Grassy Creek and Hibben subdivisions have been added to Belle Hall, along with a community of luxury apartments.
The median household income within a mile of the building sites on Belle Hall Parkway is $76,600; the U.S. median household income is $45,600. Five miles from the construction, the median household income is $63,740, DeCamilla says.
Nearby upscale residential communities—Belle Hall Parkway leads into the Belle Hall Plantation subdivision—plus two nearby shopping plazas and an elementary school help make the Belle Hall area a community in which people can live, work and play, the office developers point out.
Being a minute from Interstate 526 also adds to Bell Hall Parkway’s advantages as an office location, the developers say.
The region’s commercial real estate boom can also be attributed to low interest rates and the unpredictable stock market. Increasingly, investors are turning away from the stock market and putting their money into real estate, a firmer, more reliable investment, Nutall says.
“Today, if you can’t make money in the real estate business, you need to find another job,” he says.
Dennis Quick covers commercial real estate for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.
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