|
Retail spreads farther into once unlikely areas
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
A new Publix is rising in Summerville, land is being cleared for a Lowe’s in Goose Creek, and a Wal-Mart supercenter is planned for the northern edge of Mount Pleasant.
The tentacles of retail are reaching farther into outlying portions of the tri-county area, spurred by exploding residential development and, in some cases, riding the trail blazed by Wal-Mart.
The new Mount Pleasant Wal-Mart and the West Ashley Wal-Mart that opened this spring are both located farther away from the traditional centers of those suburbs, and smaller retailers are clustering nearby.
Big box retailers, and Wal-Mart in particular, can bring power to a community, said Patrice Duker, spokeswoman for the International Council of Shopping Centers.
“In some cases, retailers want to be paired with Wal-Mart. It’s not uncommon,” Duker said. “They know people are going to go there, traffic is going to be driven there.”
Retail is also digging in and staking claims in more rural areas where horse farms and strawberry fields still line the highways:
• Strip centers are sprouting on Bees Ferry Road in West Ashley and in neighborhoods east of the Cooper.
• Freshfields Village opened a year ago on Johns Island, bringing Piggly Wiggly’s upscale Newton Farms supermarket to the doorstep of residents on Kiawah and Seabrook islands.
• Wal-Mart opened earlier this year in Moncks Corner.
• Three residential developments are planned for Carnes Crossroads on the edge of Goose Creek and 25% of the value of those developments will be in commercial and light industrial use.
What does this commercial boom mean for the Lowcountry?
“If we don’t have a particular store or can’t provide a service, then we have a hole in our community development bucket,” said Jason Ward, Dorchester County administrator. “The reason you like sales tax when you’re a high tourism place is because it’s transportable. People outside your area pay it. As a county, we’re trying to focus on economic development and eventually retail so we can try to capture some of those dollars.”
Total gross retail sales in the region soared to more than $16.3 billion in 2005, setting another record and representing an increase of 9.3% from 2004. The Center for Economic Forecasting at Charleston Southern University expects retail sales to reach $17.6 billion this year. Director Al Parish said Carnes Crossroads and Bees Ferry Road are perfect examples of the development explosion in outlying areas.
“Carnes Crossroads in the next 20 years will get approximately 26,000 new homes,” Parish said. “I mean, that’s a small city, and that’s going to include retail and what is rumored to be some pretty high-end hotels. Look at Bee’s Ferry Road, for example, and the new Super Wal-Mart out that way. That not only serves people off Highway 61, but Ravenel and Hollywood, both of which are booming.”
What is good for county pocketbooks could have unpleasant consequences, Parish said, if development goes unchecked.
“The thing we really have to be careful of is that we do development right and that it doesn’t kill the goose that laid the golden egg,” Parish said.
Berkeley County Supervisor Jim Rozier said two of the new developments at Carnes Crossroads, Cane Bay and The Parks of Berkeley, will each be built on 4,500 acres. The Daniel Island Co. is developing a 2,500-acre tract. Rozier said the retail within those developments will help manage and stabilize the county’s tax base because commercial and industrial properties pay more taxes than residential properties.
“The other thing it does is, it manages traffic,” Rozier said. “People can go to work within the subdivision, get medical care within the subdivision and can shop in the subdivision, so it keeps some of the traffic off the roads.”
Rozier remembers a time when there was almost nothing but raw land between Moncks Corner and North Charleston. As a teenager in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he drove a Berkeley County school bus, one of only two buses that picked up children in Goose Creek.
While the main thoroughfare along U.S. Highway 52 has since changed dramatically, Rozier said much of the county will remain rural.
“With all the progress we’re having in Berkeley County, 48 percent of this county will remain just as it is,” Rozier said. “Thirty-seven percent of the land is protected and 11 percent is major waterways. That’s almost 370,000 acres that will stay just as they are.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version