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More shops planned along Dorchester Road
By Jessica Johnson
Contributing Writer
The Dorchester Road corridor will grow by another string of shops near the point where Summerville and North Charleston meet.
Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic International, the developer of Wescott Shops, plans to begin construction of the project’s third building in October.
The shop area sits near the Wal-Mart Supercenter on Dorchester Road, across the street from the King’s Grant community.
Area shoppers will be able to browse through about 9,000 square feet of additional retail space at the site. Coldwell Banker Commercial pre-leased all but a third of the proposed building.
Radio Shack and American Mattress plan to open in the new building, which is planned for the space facing Dorchester Road and across from the Wal-Mart entrance. It will be near the former home of Backyard Burgers, which is soon to be a Noisy Oyster seafood restaurant.
When the proposed construction is complete, Wescott Shops will offer 46,000 square feet of space. Coldwell Banker Commercial began working on the project about two years ago.
After the Wal-Mart became a Wal-Mart Supercenter, Coldwell Banker Commercial purchased land for the project from a local partnership.
“We bought the land right next to Wal-Mart to feed off that traffic,” said Brian Aiken of Coldwell Banker Commercial.
The Dorchester Road Wal-Mart had no space directly adjacent to it, meaning stores that normally locate around the retail giant had to move offsite, said Brent Case, vice president of Coldwell Banker Commercial.
“We felt there was a need,” he said.
Construction of Wescott Shops’ first two buildings were finished in July. The building with national tenants Payless Shoes and Cingular has been sold to a Charlotte, N.C., company.
Coldwell plans to increase the tenants in the building farther from Dorchester Road, home to Cato Fashions and Sally Beauty, by adding an optometrist and a computer center.
Coldwell is targeting multi-unit stores and national franchises to fill the remaining space, Aiken said.
As of Labor Day, the city of North Charleston had yet to approve Coldwell Banker Commercial’s building permit for the third building. Case had hoped construction would be complete on the new building by March 2007, he said.
Farther down the Dorchester Road corridor toward Ashley Phosphate Road, Coldwell Banker Commercial plans to turn the vacant Bi-Lo grocery store in Plantation Square into a corporate call center. Negotiations are ongoing, but the call center company plans to hire 400 people.
Housing growth along the Dorchester Road Corridor has led to the continuing growth of retail and office space, Case said.
The proposed Village at Coosaw Creek strip mall, outside the gates of the Coosaw Creek community, and another strip mall, Oakbrook Corners near the intersection of Dorchester and Ladson roads, plan to begin construction this year.
All these projects hope to take advantage of the nearly 40,000 vehicles that travel Dorchester Road every day and to draw from new housing construction in the area.
North Charleston has issued 3,200 new certificates of occupancy for the area since 2001, Aiken said. The city has also issued about 1,000 permits for new construction on vacant lots within the area.
Talk that the local residential real estate market may be cooling off has had no effect on the need for retail space, which Case said is more closely related to the growing population. Wescott Shops sits along one of the tri-county’s highest-growth corridors.
“Any time there is a population growth, you have retail growth,” Case said.
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