By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer

Amid the Charleston area’s high dollar real estate choices, some consider homes in the $200,000s affordable, although there is little new construction in that price range near the city.

Developers and construction companies are beginning to see there is a niche to fill.

“In this market, it is just so evident that there is a workforce that has to go to Summerville or North Charleston to buy a home. We’ll give them an opportunity to live close to where they work,” said Tony Berry, a Rock Hill developer who is creating Palmetto Place, a condominium complex off Highway 41 three miles from the intersection of Interstate 526.

Berry primarily focuses on mixed-use town center-type developments in the Rock Hill/Charlotte, N.C., area. His first project was Manchester Village, a 150-acre shopping district that includes a Target, a Best Buy, a Hilton Garden Inn, a cinema and an Olive Garden restaurant. Berry is also developing a single family home community on Lake Wylie called Water Edge where prices start in the low $400,000s.

But, Berry said he has had his eye on the Mount Pleasant area for some time. A frequent vacationer on the Isle of Palms and now a property owner there, Berry has watched the East Cooper area grow and its real estate prices inflate.

“I really just saw a niche to provide a home ownership option for workforce housing,” Berry said. “It’s not ‘affordable;’ it’s not ‘low income.’ It’s truly housing for the workforce. There are also people who might like to have a second home in the Charleston area as near to the beaches as they can be but they do not want to spend half a million dollars and up.”

Berry’s plan is to build 72 units in three buildings in the project’s first phase. One-bedroom condos start at $169,999, two-bedroom units start at $189,999, and three-bedroom condos range from $209,999 to $219,999.

Berry said his team worked on a variety of floor plans so the finished products would have a single-family-home feel.

“We’re trying for it not to feel like a multi-family living environment, even though it is,” Berry said.

Each condominium building will have secured access as well as elevators. The homes feature crown molding, walk-in closets, walk-in showers and 9-foot smooth ceilings. Amenities include a play park, swimming pool and cabana, as well as garages that can be rented or purchased. The project is near the new Daniel Island school, Does this have a name yet?.

At one time, the complex’s location on Highway 41 would have seemed distant, but I-526 now puts the area within minutes of Mount Pleasant, Charleston and North Charleston.

“I think Clements Ferry Road is a road in transition,” Berry said.

By the time Palmetto Place began advertising on May 1, half of the first phase had already sold by word of mouth. Berry said there is an 18-month restriction in place to prevent investors from purchasing multiple units and driving up prices.

Bonnie Taylor, sales director for Palmetto Place, said she has had calls on the property from as far away as New York.

“I’ve got a waiting list for three bedrooms,” Taylor said.

The Village at Carol Oaks

Near the intersection of highways 17 and 41, a local construction company owner also has a goal of bringing more affordable housing to Mount Pleasant.

Tom Gibbs of Gibbs Construction is planning The Village at Carol Oaks, a townhome development that will mix under-market housing prices with market-priced homes.

A portion of Gibbs’ project qualifies as low-income housing, with 1,000-square-foot two- and three-bedroom units selling for around $165,000. End units will be larger with more upgrades and will be priced around $215,000. All townhomes will have garages and back porches.

“We’ll have schoolteachers; we’ll have shipping clerks; we’ll have hair stylists,” Gibbs said. “There are some people working at the (Piggly Wiggly) who make almost $40,000 a year, and for a deli manager, that’s a respectable job, but at $40,000 a year, they can’t afford to work in Mount Pleasant. Something needs to change.”

Homes under $250,000 needed

Philip Ford, executive vice president of the Charleston Trident Home Builders Association, said there is definitely a need in the area for houses under $250,000.

“The folks in the area that are really being hit the hardest are your firemen, your police, your EMS,” Ford said. “It’s very difficult, based on their pay, to live in the district they represent.”

There are mainly two reasons for the area’s housing inflation, Ford said.

“One is we’re sort of landlocked on one side and there has been such high demand for people to live on the coast,” he said.

“On top of that, you add regulations such as permit allocations. What Mount Pleasant has done is say you can get only so many permits a year. It’s just supply and demand. If you limit the number of new houses to 800 a year but your demand exceeds that, that pushes up the cost of homes. It not only pushes up the cost of new homes, but also pushes up the price of existing homes.”

Tammy Hoy, executive director of the Lowcountry Housing Trust, said it is good to see some developers building affordable new units and not taking rental units off the market. Condominium conversions have further decreased the amount of affordable housing in some areas, including Mount Pleasant.

“I think there is a huge amount of people who would like to live in Mount Pleasant and can’t afford it,” Hoy said.

There was some initial opposition from the community when Gibbs proposed his townhome project, she said.

“The term ‘affordable housing’ has some negative connotations,” Hoy said. “I would applaud these developers and developers like them. There are very few people doing this price point in Mount Pleasant. How do we recruit businesses and employees? Really, it’s a growing crisis.”

Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.

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