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Development begins on Ingleside Plantation
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
The development engine is just beginning to stir at a North Charleston intersection that could become one of the area’s most prominent residential and commercial hubs.
Land is being cleared on the Ingleside Plantation tract to make room for a 300-unit apartment complex, the first construction project on the largest piece of undeveloped land in North Charleston.
Most of the 1,823-acre tract was purchased for $18 million in 1997 by German businessman Albert Weber, who later spent $6 million more for another nearby parcel. The property is sometime referred to as the Weber Tract.
At build-out, sometime within the next 15 years, Ingleside Plantation will also have single-family homes, offices, retail, light industry and possibly some hotels. It will turn the intersection of Interstate 26 and U.S. Highway 78 into a neighborhood bustling with mixed uses where the ruins of a forgotten plantation now lie among swamp and brush.
“It’s a good challenge for us, but it’s a good opportunity as well,” said North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey.
Summey had hoped a year ago the tract would attract Cabela’s, the Nebraska-based sporting-goods superstore chain. Cabela’s officials confirmed they were eyeing the
Lowcountry for the chain’s first South Carolina store.
The giant retailer, however, is known for entering markets that offer tax breaks and other incentives similar to those used to attract industry and manufacturing. South Carolina legislators had approved a deal to attract Cabela’s, which was later vetoed by Gov. Mark Sanford on the basis that such offerings were unfair to other retailers.
In spite of efforts to block the tax breaks, lawmakers in June successfully passed legislation that would offer incentives to an “extraordinary” retail establishment. The legislation did not name a specific retailer.
Summey believes retailers such as Cabela’s deserve the incentives because they offer more than retail and become destinations for out-of-town visitors. “It’s a tourist business, not just another retail establishment,” Summey said. “It draws people to spend hotel/motel nights and eat in our restaurants.”
Summey said he was unsure if Cabela’s is still interested in the deal with North Charleston.
John Castillo, a Cabela’s spokesman, said he didn’t have any updates on Cabela’s interest in the Charleston market.
“We are looking at hundreds of sites nationwide,” Castillo said. “As we have grown, we have consistently gone into areas and put together very strong public-private partnerships. It is part of a strategy that has proven to be beneficial, not only to Cabela’s but to the communities in which we locate new stores.”
Meanwhile, Ingleside Plantation has been attracting interest from hotel groups, said Eric Meyer, a principal with Meyer, Kapp & Associates, which represents Weber’s real estate interests at Ingleside.
“It’s got two miles of interstate frontage,” Meyer said. “There’s a lot of growth in the area.”
An adjacent parcel is home to Palmetto Commerce Park, home of DaimlerChrysler’s Sprinter van assembly plant. Meyer said there are plans to extend Palmetto Commerce Parkway through the industrial section of the Ingleside property. As the tract develops, portions of it will be protected, Meyer said, including the plantation cemetery.
“The area around the plantation is also protected,” Meyer said. “All of those things are assets that are catalogued and known by the state and any actions around them have to be approved.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@setcommedia.com.
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