Proposal to move interstate awaits feasibility study

By MATTHEW FRENCH
Staff Writer

When real estate developer Robert Clement III first proposed a revitalization of Charleston’s Neck area, the spit of land that leads southward to the peninsula, there was nothing but support from the business community, political community and neighborhood groups. Everyone agreed that the hundreds of acres on the Ashley River could be put to good use after the factories and plants of previous decades faded away.

At issue is a $150,000 feasibility study to determine if Interstate 26, the 40-year-old raised highway that ushers people onto the peninsula, could be moved further to the east and put at ground level. The section of roadway in question abuts Clement’s Magnolia project, which is the 500-acre brownfields his company is planning to turn into a “smart growth,” mixed-use community.

Moving a large section of interstate highway any distance at all is expensive; add to the mix the need for an access road that will service both the port facility planned for the old Charleston Naval base and the city of North Charleston, and the numbers go up even more. Federal funding could provide a solution, but time has also become a factor, as the port will be operational in the next four or five years.

And therein lies the problem, according to several sources familiar with the project. The South Carolina State Ports Authority has gone through painstaking negotiations with the Army Corps of Engineers to work out details of an environmental impact study so the SPA can move ahead with its Navy base plans and the access road. There is some fear that an attempt to tie the two road projects together could derail the environmental impact study and further delay opening the facility.

The SPA is committed to, above all, expanding its port facilities as directed by the South Carolina Legislature.

“We have a law that directs us to expand and it says we’re to be done by the end of 2008,” says Byron Miller, SPA spokesman. “We are trying to get that done as quickly as possible.”

While the SPA was directed to take control of expansion of the terminal facility itself, the infrastructure leading to and from the facility is the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation, the public railways division of the state Commerce Department and the State Infrastructure Bank.

Tangled web of roads

When the SPA split the Charleston Navy Base with the city of North Charleston, a deal was struck that says the state would pay for building an access road from I-26 to the port. A “rough cost estimate” places the worst-case scenario costs at between $250 million and $300 million, according to Ronald Mitchum, executive director of the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments.

“That number takes into account inflationary spending and is a worst-case scenario provided to us by the (Department of Transportation,)” Mitchum says.

In the same legislation that ordered the SPA to build a new terminal, the state ordered the DOT, the public railways division of the state Commerce Department and the State Infrastructure Bank to “explore all potential opportunities for federal funding of the infrastructure enhancements for port expansion on the western side of the Cooper River.”

Several people familiar with the two road projects say both are vital to the region’s economy and neighborhoods, but stop short of agreeing that they should be linked together in an attempt to secure more federal highway funding.

“Moving I-26 needs to be looked at, but it does not need to be tied to the port access road at this time,” says Mary Graham, vice president of public policy for the Chamber of Commerce. “The Army Corps of Engineers and the port have agreed on a scope of work for the environmental impact study and the risk that adding any other elements could derail the process is too great right now.”

With a potential $250 million cost for the access road alone, the price tag is nearly five times larger than the proposed $55 million earmarked for Lowcountry highway projects in the transportation bill recently passed by the state House of Representatives. And that $55 million represents road projects over the next six years.

But the SPA is also helping to finance its own cause. It has committed more than $1.3 million of its $4.9 million environmental impact study fee for an Access Roadway Feasibility Study to both help keep the project on schedule and assuage community concerns.

However, tying the access road to the project that would move I-26 further to the east—and thereby closer to the new port facility—could open the door to federal funding for both projects and actually end up costing the state considerably less than the $250 million access road alone, according some familiar with both projects.

“Moving I-26 to the east brings it closer to the port and the other industrial areas on the east side of the peninsula, would make the access road shorter, and could trigger more federal funding,” Graham says.

“But we don’t want to necessarily tie them together,” she adds

Meanwhile, the chamber is working to try to get the state to put up the $150,000 for the feasibility study. If the state grants the money, it will be awarded to COG, which will then put the study out for competitive bid.

Interstate 26 in its twilight

Everyone agrees that I-26 is about at the end of its service life. Built in the 1960s, the road has seen its capability dwindle for handling the ever-increasing amount of traffic coming into the peninsula. When the new Cooper River bridge opens, the existing infrastructure of the highway could lead to bottlenecks.

“Moving I-26 is part of the public policy and legislative agenda for the Chamber of Commerce,” says Graham. “There is no question that I-26 is almost at the point of being functionally obsolete, and something is going to have to be done.”

Charleston’s Planning Department has also been in on discussions about the highway’s fate. Former planning director Tim Keane was instrumental in helping to determine that the roadway would likely have to move, and interim planning director Christopher Morgan agrees that moving the road could undo decades of wrong to a neighborhood that was literally cleaved in two when the highway was built.

“Moving I-26 is an idea that’s been floated that we really think would enhance the (Magnolia) project and fix things about the roadway that were done when it was put in,” says Morgan. “I-26 basically cut right through the middle of the Rosemont neighborhood when it was built, so we think moving it east would be a good fit because it would bring it closer to the industrial side on the east, while moving it further away from the residential side on the west and the proposed Magnolia site, while still providing good access to both sides.”

Charleston’s Mayor Joseph Riley, who has been a proponent of revitalizing the upper portion of the peninsula for years, says moving the interstate out of the neighborhood is something that needs to be done.

“The funding for the feasibility study has not been worked out yet, but this represents a very important opportunity for our community,” Riley says. “For that section of the interstate, the life expectancy has only about 10 or so years left, it’s bridged, and will soon be 50 years old.”

The section of highway that would be moved starts just west of the Union Heights neighborhood and would re-connect with the existing I-26 path near where it currently crosses King Street. The proposed new alignment for the highway would be at ground level instead of elevated, and could take advantage of a street right-of-way that already exists, Riley says.

“The proposed alignment makes so much sense, because it would be less expensive to rebuild it in the new alignment (than in its current position,)” he says.

After the study

While no one debates that the feasibility study needs to be done, speculation abounds as to what the results will be. The study, which would be conducted by an engineering firm, would determine if the costs to move the section of interstate benefits the state, if the roadway should be brought down to ground level, and if the I-26 project should be tied to the access road project.

“I don’t see them being linked right now,” the Council of Governments’ Mitchum says. “I just don’t envision them together at this time. We have to look first to see if moving I-26 can be done, and then look at how that would meet the needs of the port and North Charleston. The access road is a separate issue that will be addressed as part of the environmental impact study.”

But, he says, there’s nothing to prevent the powers-that-be from readdressing the issue if it is shown the state would benefit from a linked project.

“If relocating to the existing right of way is feasible and including the access road shows a true benefit, we may have to take a step back, re-visit the issue and see if there’s a better alternative,” Mitchum says.

And Riley doesn’t balk at the possibility of linking together the access road and the highway movement project.

“I think the access road could be tied to the interstate,” he says. “As we study it more carefully, I think we could find that linking the two projects together makes sense. That is why we need this study.”

Matthew French covers government policy and legislation for the Business Journal. E-mail him at mfrench@crbj.com.

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