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Spurned by BenefitFocus, Mount Pleasant looks for next big employer
By Matthew French
Staff Writer
When Mount Pleasant town officials learned they were losing BenefitFocus.com, a local software development company, to neighboring Daniel Island, there was little hand-wringing and worry.
Despite the fact that the town is losing one of its most prominent employers, plans are already in motion to replace BenefitFocus with “something better,” says Mac Burdette, Mount Pleasant’s town administrator.
When the company announced it was looking to move, Mount Pleasant economic development officials did their best to hang onto the company, says BenefitFocus’ chairman, Mason Holland. But the offers came too late.
While Burdette says BenefitFocus had made up its mind to move before Mount Pleasant had the opportunity to persuade them otherwise, he says he is not playing the woe-is-me card.
“We wish them all the success in the world, but I think they had their minds made up from day one that Daniel Island is where they wanted to be,” Burdette says. “We tried all we could to change their minds, but there’s no way we could offer enough to do that. There are only so many incentives you can offer before you start losing money on the deal.”
But those same incentives and the development of Hungry Neck Boulevard could bring the next BenefitFocus to town, Burdette adds.
“There are positives. We’re on the verge of an agreement with the Beach Company where we’ll create a first-rate, 10-acre site for economic development off of the Phase II of Hungry Neck Boulevard,” he says. “We’re still going to have a great site to create at a very attractive price for another economic development site.”
Hungry Neck Boulevard, long touted by town officials as an alternative corridor to congested Highway 17, will never sustain the traffic levels of the town’s major thoroughfare, but it will ultimately parallel Highway 17 from Bowman Road to the Charleston National Country Club. The second phase of the Hungry Neck Boulevard will wind behind the Wando Crossing shopping center, linking to the south the existing Hungry Neck with Bowman Road.
Along with the roadway extension will come a mixed-use neighborhood, complete with 449 housing units and a 10-acre property slated for economic development office space.
“We’re going to go after something better than BenefitFocus. BenefitFocus is gone, so now we have to look ahead,” Burdette says. “This 10-acre site, along with Carolina Park, is going to be the lynchpin on which we build the future of economic development in Mount Pleasant.”
The site is zoned specifically for economic development, which means it could only be used by a business meeting specific criteria.
Some uses for the land could include office space, research and development laboratory space or an educational institution, such as a college or university, or a business, technical or vocational school.
The businesses must also comply with the town’s strategic economic development plan, which promotes the diversification of the economic base.
“Economic zoning is fairly specific in what it allows,” says Daniel Doyle, a vice president with the Beach Company, which is developing both the residential and the economic development sites.
“The facilities we build there won’t be to spec because when a potential user comes along, we want the facilities to be available to them, rather than having to build something specific for them.”
The company is still working out the final details with the Mount Pleasant Town Council but hopes to begin construction by the end of the year, Doyle says.
“There are a lot of things we haven’t worked out yet,” he says. “What exactly will go on the 10-acre site hasn’t been determined. We can put three, four or five buildings there. It’s just a matter of determining who’s out there as a potential candidate.”
Doyle says an ideal candidate company could be involved in technology or defense and is looking to relocate or open a satellite office.
“If company XYZ comes in and qualifies under the economic development guidelines and wants to buy the property, we would certainly be willing to sell to them,” Doyle says. “But this is not going to be a site that we sell to a developer who turns around and sells it or leases it to someone else.”
Burdette says the combination of the economic development site and partnership with the Beach Company will lead to nearly assured success in the search for a tenant company to replace BenefitFocus at the top of the list of Mount Pleasant businesses.
“Economic development is like baseball,” he says. “If you fail seven out of
10 times, you’re still successful. We’d love to build to accommodate IT and compete directly with North Charleston, Charleston and Daniel Island. We’ve learned a lot in this exercise about what we need to do to compete with the surrounding communities.”
Matthew French is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at mfrench@crbj.com.
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