|
Poplar Grove sales sizzle, starts further development
By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer
Prospective well-to-do homeowners are eyeing and buying property in Poplar Grove, the 6,000-acre former rice plantation in the Hollywood-Red Top area off Savannah Highway along Rantowles Creek.
About 800 homes are slated for the tract, which is being developed in three phases and is still being zoned. Home sites range from $150,000 to $500,000, the most expensive being deep-water sites, according to developer Vic Mills.
All 69 lots of the first section of the first phase of development are sold out, said Mills, whose Augusta, Ga.-based Poplar Grove Development LLC began marketing that section 18 months ago.
Of the first phase’s 35-lot second section, which Mills calls Phase 1B, 25 lots have been sold since marketing began eight months ago.
“This is phenomenal, given that roads will not be paved in Phase 1B until next week,” Mills said Sept. 7.
Development for Phase 1C, which consists of 15 cottage lots, began in September. The final section of Phase 1, Phase 1D, will consist of 56 town homes and 111 single-family detached homes. Marketing for these phases will begin this fall.
The second phase of development will consist of 400 lots on 1,300 acres. Development could begin in mid- to late-2007, Mills said.
The third and final phase will offer 50 homes on sites ranging from 15 to 200 acres. It might be another 12 to 18 months before development begins, Mills said.
Most of Poplar Grove’s landowners are East Coast retirees and second-home buyers, Mills said.
The average home price at Poplar Grove is about $1 million. Bennett Hofford Construction Co., Chuck Bennett Custom Homes LLC, JAC 2000 LLC, Atlanticville Homes LLC, Simonini Builders and Askins Construction are the preferred homebuilders.
Homes in the gated community conform to a Lowcountry plantation-style design.
Conservation contentment
Nestled along four miles of river and marsh frontage and filled with pines, Poplar Grove features lakes and ponds, hiking trails, 5-foot-deep canals once used for transporting rice, a large variety of native plants and other attractions for nature lovers.
When Poplar Grove Development Co. purchased the timberland from MeadWestvaco six years ago with the intention of transforming the tract into a residential development of some 5,000 homes, conservationists protested. The South Carolina Coastal Conservation League, Ducks Unlimited and other environmental groups demanded that only a few hundred homes be built.
Poplar Grove also became embroiled in an urban sprawl controversy several years ago that included the neighboring Watson Hill development. Environmentalists argued that the thousands of homes planned for these developments threatened the environmental integrity of the Ashley River historic area.
Mills and the environmentalists worked out a homebuilding compromise and created a 3,100-acre conservation easement on Poplar Grove. This led to development restrictions on nearby Middleton, Millbrook and Uxbridge plantations that, along with Poplar Grove, form the Ashley River Plantation District.
“The conservation of the natural features of our land and the protection and enhancement of its wildlife remain a primary focus as we develop Poplar Grove,” Mills said in a statement posted on Poplar Grove’s Web site, www.poplargrovecharleston.com.
Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.
|
E-Mail This Article
Printer-Friendly Version