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New WPC headquarters marks another Noisette milestone
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
To officials at WPC Inc., moving their headquarters from Mount Pleasant to The Navy Yard at Noisette, a community restoration project in North Charleston, made a lot of sense.
“The Navy Yard at Noisette appealed to WPC because it provided an opportunity to contribute to the restoration of the site that will ultimately become part of the overall sustainable community. Further, it provided WPC space to grow in a central location,” said William Christopher, WPC’s chief executive officer.
WPC, a geotechnical engineering firm with offices in Columbia, Myrtle Beach, Charlotte, N.C., Savannah, Ga., and Jacksonville, Fla., performs soil testing, construction materials monitoring and testing, asbestos and lead-based paint assessments, environmental site assessments, wetlands and endangered species safety recommendations, plus other environmental engineering services.
Last month, WPC purchased a 4-acre tract at The Navy Yard for $1.5 million. The 25,000-square-foot office building, which is under construction, will be built from recycled material and will be an environmentally friendly facility housing 75 employees. The building is slated for completion by the end of this year, Christopher said.
The acreage WPC bought from Noisette is the first commercial property land sale Noisette has closed within The Navy Yard, formerly part of the Charleston Naval Base. Other Navy Yard land deals are under contract but have yet to close, said Roger Noyes, The Navy Yard’s development director.
Noisette began acquiring its 340 acres of the former Navy base in 2004. The company now has all but 35 acres of the base, which Noisette is transforming into a sustainable, environmentally and ecologically healthy community forming the core of what the company envisions as a revitalized North Charleston. Although Noisette’s master plan for the city’s revitalization encompasses 3,000 acres, Noisette is directly redeveloping only The Navy Yard and advising the city on the redevelopment of the remaining acres.
Fitting the mix
The company fits in perfectly with Noisette’s plan to make The Navy Yard a haven for designers, artists, artisans, planners and environmentally conscious, sustainable-minded builders and engineers, said John Knott, Noisette’s chief executive officer.
“The WPC headquarters adds to design and engineering firms like McMillan Smith & Partners Architects, along with the Trident Home Builders Association, the American College of the Building Arts and the Clemson University Restoration Institute, which have chosen The Navy Yard and continue to fulfill the vision of Noisette as the Silicon Valley of the Restoration Economy,” Knott said.
“The Restoration Economy” is the title of a book by Storm Cunningham, executive director of the Arlington, Va.-based Revitalization Institute, a nonprofit international alliance of organizations dedicated to revitalizing communities and regions around the world. The book’s title refers to what Cunningham claims is a $2 trillion global economy based on restoring rural and urban areas.
At $150 per square foot, WPC’s new headquarters will consist of brand new construction attached to a partially demolished building. The structure will feature a “green” roof partially or completely covered with vegetation, a design strategy contributing to The Navy Yard’s storm-water management system to reduce storm-water runoff. The building is being constructed to the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards.
Charleston-based LS3P Architects designed the building. North Charleston-based Trident Construction is the general contractor.
In addition to the WPC construction project, Noisette recently hired New York-based international commercial real estate giant Cushman & Wakefield.
Cushman & Wakefield will help Noisette develop The Navy Yard by providing capital markets and valuation advisory services, plus brokerage services for apartments, hotels, stores and other commercial properties.
Cushman & Wakefield affiliate Coppedge & Tison, a commercial real estate firm based in Charleston, will also provide brokerage services and issue requests for proposals, said Coppedge & Tison principal John Tison.
Steady progress
In March 2001, when Noisette completed and presented to the public its 3,000-acre master plan for the Navy base and the neighboring communities, only 32% of Noisette-area residents owned homes, houses generally were worth $54 per square foot and stayed on the market for 270 days, commercial properties cost between $40,000 and $50,000 per acre and 70% of the East Montague Avenue business district was vacant, according to figures provided by Noisette.
Additionally, the federal government owned the entire Navy base.
Today, home ownership in the Noisette area is at 45%; housing has appreciated to $160 per square foot, with homes staying on the market an average of 30 days; the value of commercial properties has skyrocketed, ranging from $230,000 to $500,000 per acre; the East Montague business district is 90% leased; and Noisette has acquired nearly 90% of former Navy base and rebranded it The Navy Yard at Noisette.
Among Noisette’s other milestones are the development of Riverfront Park on the Cooper River, North Charleston’s first waterfront park; the renovation of 10 Storehouse Row, a former Navy warehouse that now houses design, architecture and homebuilding businesses and organizations, plus artists’ studios and American College of the Building Arts studios and classrooms; the establishment of the Michaux Conservancy to preserve Noisette Creek and the surrounding wetlands; and the creation of The Noisette Foundation, a nonprofit organization that has launched programs like the Lowcountry HUB Contractor Business Academy to help minority contractors compete for more construction work in the tri-county area. All of this is at The Navy Yard.
Outside of The Navy Yard, Noisette is managing the design and development of Oak Terrace Preserve, a 55-acre, 370-home neighborhood of “green” single-family houses and townhouses.
Other neighboring residential developments influenced by Noisette’s revitalization of the Navy base include Horizon Village, a 66-acre development consisting of 484 units of affordable housing, and Mixson Avenue, a 44-acre mixed-used development that will have 950 residential units, from apartments to detached single-family homes.
The Navy Yard’s massive urban redevelopment plan will add more than 5,400 homes and 8 million square feet of commercial and retail space. Six years ago, when Knott and other Noisette officials presented the company’s master plan, they estimated the build out would take about 20 years.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer at the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
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