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Uniting development
By Molly Parker
Staff Writer
Connecting the Tri-County
This is the first in a series of occasional stories examining Charleston’s transformation from an industrial-based economy into sustainable business and community models that continue to draw the region together in thoughtful and unanticipated ways. As we continue on this path, the Charleston Regional Business Journal will take a look at the factors, forces and people behind the movement, and the challenges that accompany progress.
Urban infill developments large and small are slated to transform the vast industrial land between Charleston and North Charleston into live-work communities that stitch these two cities together. The area that stretches from the foot of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge up through the Neck and into the heart of old North Charleston is one of the most underutilized areas on the Peninsula. City officials and innovative developers are working to reshape the region. Can they get it done?
One recent afternoon, from the second-story balcony of eLifespaces, Fred Fabian looked out onto his business’s closest neighbors: an old tire store, one modest residential home, an automobile electrician, acres of brownfield and the Norfolk Southern and CSX rail lines.
The barren and blue-collar surroundings on either side of upper Meeting and King streets hardly seem fitting for the high-tech home and office electronics located inside of his depot-fashioned building.
“People wondered why I would put this building in the middle of nowhere,” Fabian said.
Urban infill developments large and small, the type that brag of true sustainability because they are built around existing infrastructure and in tight spaces, are slated to transform a diverse tract of land that stretches from the Holy City at the foot of the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge up to the shuttered Charleston Naval Base and into old North Charleston.
“Hindsight is always 20/20, and I wish I were smart enough to say, ‘Oh yeah, I knew all that was coming and that’s why I moved here,’ which is not at all true,” Fabian said. “But since we made the decision, did all the plans and actually moved here, the place exploded on us.”
Well, it’s expected to explode, but it’s not exactly an overnight boomtown.
Fabian sits almost directly in the middle of it all, in what you might call the Adam’s apple of Charleston’s Neck, and yet right now, he’s sitting in the middle of almost nothing. That doesn’t stop politicians and developers from waxing optimistic about their plans.
“It is really a national story. This is going to be remarkable,” Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said.
In the late 1800s, some 20 manufacturers turned out one-fifth of the U.S. fertilizer market in the area where Fabian now showcases his luxurious electronics, such as a liquor cabinet that pages the owner when it is opened and a half-million-dollar home theater system.
His office sits across the street from where Magnolia Development LLC plans to turn about 150 acres of highland—stained from the remnants of chemical manure—into a mixed-use community including up to 140,000 square feet of commercial and office space and 4,400 townhomes within the next few decades.
“(It will be an) extraordinary transformation of land from polluted, former industrial, almost abandoned property into a thriving new part of our city and this region,” Riley said.
True sustainability
About five miles up the street in North Charleston, the Noisette Co. is planning its own massive redevelopment project for the Navy Yard that aspires to turn the southern end of the city back into a thriving metropolis after the disappointing loss of both the military installation and the vast middle class that fled the city’s core for its suburban edges.
Noisette’s long-term plan is to build 5,000 to 7,000 residential units and up to 6 million square feet of commercial space.
“If we’re truly going to be sustainable in the truest sense of the word, we can’t continue this sprawl pattern or we’re going to destroy this way of life,” Noisette CEO John Knott said.
Noisette and Magnolia are the largest infill projects in this area, but certainly not the only ones.
The closure of the Navy base in 1996 rocked North Charleston, but in the last few years, more than $1 billion in investment has poured into the 3,000-acre footprint surrounding the former base with developments ranging from the Mixson Avenue project to Oak Terrace Preserve to the transformation of the old General Asbestos and Rubber Co into a residential neighborhood.
On the base, more than 1,200 employees and 65 different businesses and enterprises are now located on the 350-acre base, Knott said.
North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said both cities are in discussion about the impact these developments will have on the existing infrastructure, namely roads.
“I think what we’re seeing in these blighted areas is a rebirth of activity and investment,” he said. “It’s one of those infill growth corridors that we can create for business, industry and residents that help us deter urban sprawl.”
Additionally, Riley said he wants to see in the next five years a commuter rail service, running along the lines originally built to sustain the old fertilizer plants, that would stitch these developments and connect Charleston to North Charleston to Summerville and Moncks Corner.
‘A blank slate’
Less than 10 miles south of the Navy Base, on Charleston’s Eastside, the old Cigar Factory—first a cotton mill and later an office complex—located on East Bay and Columbus streets, has turned into a high-end retail and condominium complex with units listed for between $349,000 and $1.5 million.
And just a stone’s throw from the bridge, WECCO of Charleston LLC has two projects in the works, One Cool Blow and New Market. The former is a nearly constructed 80,000-square-foot development consisting of 53 residential and five commercial units sitting on just under one acre of land off Cool Blow Street. The latter is a project just off the bridge’s East Bay exit that will eventually include 160,000 square feet of mixed use space.
“What we have there is a blank slate,” said WECCO president William Cogswell, referring to the underutilized land in much of the district.
All these separate developments eventually will weave together a neglected strip of land, providing more traditional live-work communities, he said, and, “all ships rise on that tide.”
Also in that area, the Florida-based Ginn Co., known for its massive resort-style projects, owns 186 acres atop an old landfill overlooking the Cooper River. Dubbed “The Promenade,” by previous owner Joe Griffith Inc.—a name that has stuck despite the ownership transition—that plot of land had been slated for a mixed-use development of office and residential units and a marina with access to a 3,000-foot stretch of waterfront.
Considering the prime location of this property, in proximity to so many of the Lowcountry’s main arteries, it’s hard not to wonder why mass-scale development did not happen here sooner. It’s downtown Charleston minus the parking headaches, an easy trip to Interstate 26, right off the foot of the Ravenel bridge and a quick hike to North Charleston.
But like a Southern conversation, this metamorphosis is slow-moving and prone to distraction.
Just ask John Kammeyer.
It’s been more than 18 years since Hurricane Hugo forced Rug Masters from its historic location on Calhoun Street to Morrison Drive—Charleston’s old Auto Mile.
“When we came up here I talked with some people at the city, and they said this will be the next up and coming place for business,” said Kammeyer, president of the Oriental rug retailer. “Eighteen years have gone by and nothing really has come in here at all of any significance. It’s somewhat frustrating, to be honest.
“I keep asking, what is the problem. Why can’t we get people into the belt of the city? For us, it’s been a gold mine.”
It seems the city let a prime opportunity pass with the housing boom that stretched well into 2007, he said.
Burnt cake
The Ginn Co., for instance, has yet to dig any gold-dipped shovels into the ground. What once was billed as the staple of new development welcomed by the Ravenel bridge has turned into little more than rumors about when, and if, the company will ever break ground.
A call to the Ginn Co. was not returned.
The political arena has been tough on Noisette. The company’s progress, or lack thereof, was for months a well-worn topic around the North Charleston City Council horseshoe as the company sought a $165 million bond deal from the city. It finally passed in November, but not without hesitation among some council members.
The hubbub made the men behind the Magnolia project seem public relations mavericks, even through the extensive and ongoing environmental cleanup necessary to move homes there.
As recently as October, Charleston Councilman Jimmy Gallant, who represents that area, said his motto with the developers, namely partner Robert Clement, was to “bake a cake” and “do it together.”
But even those relationships have been strained recently. In February, Gallant publicly criticized Dan Proffitt, Magnolia’s president, for failing to communicate with him and the neighborhood leaders about plans to move forward with the first phase of construction.
The council unanimously passed a resolution to keep any of Magnolia’s requests off the agenda until Gallant is satisfied.
“There’s no communication like we had in the beginning of the process,” Gallant said shortly after the vote. “It has soured. I’m the nicest guy in the world, and I don’t feel comfortable working with Dan Proffitt. He’s lost the confidence of the African-American leaders in the community.”
Proffitt offered little more than a “no” when asked recently if this tiff had passed.
“I’m not in a position to tell you what we’re doing,” he said, regarding negotiations with Gallant. “I’m not going to talk about that, really.”
Change is on the way
Regardless, Proffitt said the company is poised to shortly move forward with the initial infrastructure improvements that will pave the way for an eight-block development to include big-box retail stores, multi-family condos and rental units, a hotel and an office building. That includes updates to Hariot, Petty and Mechanic streets, and the addition of a 1,400-foot bridge across the marsh that will provide direct access to I-26.
Proffitt said he imagines people will be living there by 2011 at the latest.
“If (they) don’t, we’ve done something wrong, I’m afraid,” he said.
This region springs forth with such emotional discourse because of its roots both before and after its fertilizer heydays. Before the English settlers, generations of Native Americans trekked through the Neck along a path that would later become King Street.
After the Civil War, it was largely rural land, and home to eight black burial sites made atrocious to visit by the smell of rotting fish and leftover phosphate from the fertilizer plants.
In later years, the unincorporated Charleston County area went without most basic services, residents recall.
Miss Eady’s little house
Elouise Eady, 82, remembers those days. She has lived in her modest home tucked inside the Silver Hill neighborhood for the last 42 years.
She recalls the day a much younger Riley knocked on her door, promising he would pave the streets and provide gas service to the area if she helped him get the votes to annex the land into the city. He lived up to his word, said Eady, who has been the president of the Silver Hill-Magnolia Neighborhood Council for almost as long as she’s lived there.
For years—until its closure in 1972—Eady worked on the assembly line of the Old Cigar Factory. From her vantage point, it’s hard to imagine that someone may soon be living there in a plush condo. But she’s glad change is on the horizon, so long as it doesn’t impact the home she built through years of hard work.
“I’m for progress,” Eady said. “Just do not touch this little house right here. Y’all can do whatever it is you want to do, but please don’t touch Miss Eady’s little house, or my other neighbors.”
On the upswing
John Tecklenburg, an associate with CC&T Real Estate Services and Charleston’s former economic development director, said he recalls the beginning of discussions about this area when he left his city job. Today, he’s selling land in the Neck on behalf of his clients. His brother, an attorney, is opening a law office next to eLifeservices.
“If anything,” he said, “I see this knitting together Charleston and North Charleston.
“It looks rough now but it was rougher back then. It’s definitely on the upswing and it feels good to be a part of it.”
Molly Parker is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at mparker@scbiznews.com.
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