Quick Notes: Trends & Talk About Town

By Dennis Quick

Remember Watergate? What launched Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the investigation that eventually led to Richard Nixon’s resignation of the presidency was a break-in at the Democratic Party’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C.’s Watergate office and apartment complex.

A crime occurred, and the reporters followed it. Since then, countless reporters have tried to emulate Woodward and Bernstein. After all, few things in journalism are more rewarding than untangling webs of deceit, putting together the pieces of a crooked puzzle and finally nailing the bad guys. Of course, to start looking for the bad guys, you need a crime.

Regarding the Post and Courier’s reported four-month investigation of the Noisette Co. and its president and CEO, John Knott, questions come to mind. Namely: Why is the Post and Courier so hot and bothered about John Knott? What triggered the investigation? Where is the break-in?

In its piece on July 3, “Can the Noisette Co. Get the Job Done,” the Post and Courier reports that it conducted more than 70 interviews and reviewed “hundreds of pages of records in Maryland and South Carolina” from the 1980s and early 1990s pertaining to Knott’s past. (Knott is a Maryland native.)

Checking out Knott’s background is one thing. But four months is a long time and a lot of energy to spend investigating somebody who has never been suspected of doing anything illegal.

In fact, the Post and Courier piece fails to pin any illegal activities on Knott. Instead, the story says Knott’s business background is strewn with lawsuits and unfinished projects.

Assuming all that is true—Knott, naturally, calls the Post and Courier piece inaccurate and one-sided—it is unfair to insinuate that the Noisette urban redevelopment project most likely will fail because of Knott’s supposed inability to complete past projects.

Certainly Knott ran into debt problems and failed projects resulting from the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s. A lot of developers did. However, instead of declaring bankruptcy, Knott paid his debts, in part by selling his house. That’s character.

“Noisette is not about me,” Knott said during a press conference July 5 that repudiated the Post and Courier piece. “It’s never been about me.”

Instead, the 3,000-acre project is about a team of Noisette employees and urban redevelopment experts committed to transforming North Charleston into the “Great American City,” he says.

During the press conference, Knott pointed out that since March 2001, when the Noisette project got underway, the Noisette Co. “has performed and is performing.”

The company completed its master plan on time and on its own dime. Space on the old Navy base, the heart of Noisette’s turf, is being leased to businesses and other entities, including the American College of the Building Arts. Riverfront Park opened this past July 4.

More importantly, the Noisette project has generated interest in North Charleston like the city has never seen before. The Park Circle area, for instance, is one of the hottest residential real estate markets in the Lowcountry. Young professionals, who half a dozen years ago would have scoffed at the notion of buying a house in North Charleston, are snapping up property.

Like most Americans, I seek instant gratification. I want my Great American City, and I want it now. But keep in mind that Noisette is at least a 20-year project. The Noisette Co. never promised a quick turnaround. Cities are not built that way.

In April, the Post and Courier lit fireworks about the bank loans Noisette took out without notifying North Charleston, the company’s business partner. The city and Noisette extinguished those fireworks by holding press conferences saying Noisette’s oversight in that matter did not threaten the project, and what happened boiled down to a contractual misunderstanding and a general lack of consideration (which Knotted admitted) on the part of Noisette. The parties kissed, made up and moved on.

Now we have the vats of ink the paper recently spilled about John Knott’s past, followed by another Noisette press conference to remove the ink stains.

All of this is getting awfully old. It’s a shame Knott has to keep defending himself and Noisette against the Post and Courier, whose recent “investigation” comes off as a mud-slinging exercise, with rather trivial pieces of mud at that.

But then, as I’ve said before in this column, anybody with a vision for change is a target for those devoted to the status quo. Knott’s radical vision for North Charleston has placed a bull’s-eye on his back.

Dennis Quick is the senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.

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