By Ashley Fletcher Frampton
aframpton@scbiznews.com
Published Dec. 10, 2008

The city of Charleston plans to recast 42 acres on the city’s West Side as a mixed-use development called Horizon that is intended to attract biotech research and development ventures.

City leaders describe the redevelopment plan, a partnership with the Medical University of South Carolina and the S.C. Research Authority, as a future job-creation engine for the Charleston region.

The three entities announced plans earlier this year to transform a former mattress factory on Meeting Street into an incubator for high-tech research and business. Charleston Mayor Joe Riley said the West Side redevelopment plan is the next step in that partnership.

Future buildings expected to take shape in the area, now primarily surface parking lots, would provide a place for businesses launched in the incubator to relocate. The area could also attract established businesses from elsewhere that would benefit from the proximity to his hospital’s research and clinical trials, MUSC President Ray Greenberg said.

However, no timeframe has been set for starting the redevelopment work, in part because of the flagging economy.

City Council gave initial approval Tuesday to a plan to invest $100 million in public infrastructure through a special tax district. Needed infrastructure includes new and improved streets and parking garages where surface lots now stand.

The special tax district, called tax-increment financing, allows the city to borrow against future property tax increases expected in the area. City officials expect values to rise because of the public investments and the private investments they hope will follow.

The tax district, which is broader than the 42 acres to be redeveloped, would last for 25 years. Boundaries of the redevelopment area are Lockwood Boulevard, Fishburne Street, Spring Street and Hagood Avenue.

Plans call for improved connections among streets within the area. Horizon Street, which gives the project its name, would become the main corridor of the area. New streets would connect residential areas on the eastern side of the area to Brittlebank Park to the west.

Officials say they have no immediate plans for buildings, though residential, commercial and research facilities all would be part of the ultimate plan. Greenberg and Riley said they would be built by private developers.

“It’s got to be substantially private to make the financing work,” Riley said

The area to be redeveloped was water in 1939, Michael Maher, director of the Charleston Civic Design Center, said Tuesday in a presentation to council members. Later, it was a landfill.

“We’re talking about an area that has high development costs,” Maher said.

Total public investment in the area is expected to be about $155 million, with the additional $55 million potentially to come from state and federal grants for community development and transportation.

Riley said Tuesday he did not know when the city would begin making infrastructure improvements in the area. City documents say bonds for the infrastructure can be issued as far as 10 years out from the establishment of the redevelopment area.

The city, MUSC and the SCRA own most of the land to be redeveloped, Riley said. No private homes stand in the redevelopment area now, he said, and the city does not plan to use eminent domain to acquire any property.

He said the three partners could create a redevelopment authority to guide development activity in the area.

Greenberg said MUSC owns an office tower in the area, along with other parcels purchased before he came to the university 14 years ago. He said he could envision MUSC building additional facilities in the area in the long term, but the school has no plans right now for construction.

“In the present economic climate, we’re not looking to build anything there,” Greenberg said.

Riley said he wanted to establish the tax district by the end of 2008 so that a revenue stream for the improvements would be in place. Recent hotel improvements in the area, which will add to property values, were part of the motivation for moving ahead with the financing district, Greenberg said.

Maher said the idea of turning the area into a high-tech growth center is not new; the concept was included in a city plan from 1998.

City Council will hold a public hearing on the proposal at its meeting Tuesday.

Officials with the S.C. Research Authority were not immediately available for comment on Wednesday.