‘The Citistates Report:’ Will we heed the warnings? By Bill Settlemyer Will success spoil the Charleston region? That’s the core question posed by “The Citistates Report” recently published by The Post and Courier as a five-part series presented in consecutive Sunday editions of the paper.
Calendar OCT. 16: Professional Referrals Network meeting. 12:30-1:30 p.m. at the Omar Shrine Center, Mount Pleasant. Cost $9. Information: Beth Kempton, (843) 762-8042.
Accolades & More Steve Davis, Burwell Boykin, Jerod Frazier, Jennie Gilmore, Duncan Hutchison, Sonya McGough, Sandy Scott, Rachel Passailaigue, Michael Tecosky, Mark Dunham, James Reed and Erik Brine have joined Trident United Way as loaned executives. Loaned executives come to Trident United Way for three months during the prime fundraising season. They are helping the agency raise $9.5 million this year.
People in the News I’On Group has named Alyssondra Campaigne as vice president of strategy and marketing. I’On Group Realty also has hired Richard Freeman and Jennifer Tyler as sales agents. Freeman and Tyler will manage home sales within Mixson, the company’s newest neighborhood, in the Park Circle area of North Charleston.
$1M provided for cancer The Medical University of South Carolina Hollings Cancer Center and the Spaulding-Paolozzi Foundation have provided $1 million to create the Countess Alicia Paolozzi Distinguished Endowed Chair in Breast Cancer Diagnosis, Treatment and Research.
Field of Dreams By Dan McCue With the Jebel Ali Free Zone in the emirate of Dubai, the principals involved in Jafza International created an epic logistics and distribution center on 35,000 barren desert acres. That center of trade and commerce has since spun off nearly a dozen mini-cities on the vast empty land around it, cities dedicated to specific industries ranging from aeronautics to high tech, from textiles to maritime.
Coal plant plan fires debate By Staff reports Even as the nation turns its attention to producing environmentally friendly energy through renewable resources, Santee Cooper is poised to construct a 600-megawatt pulverized coal facility near Kingsburg to meet the state’s growing energy demands.
Magnolia vs. Noisette By Molly Parker In many aspects, Robert Clement III and John Knott have a similar mission. In North Charleston, Knott, CEO of The Noisette Co., is trying to churn an urban community out of the old Charleston Naval Base that closed over a decade ago. In Charleston, on the neck of the peninsula, Clement is working to reshape a lifeless industrial site into a desirable neighborhood called the Magnolia development.
Parish awaits sentencing date By Staff reports Former Charleston Southern University professor Al Parish, who pleaded guilty earlier this month to scamming investors out of nearly $100 million, has yet to receive a sentencing date.
Insurance bid process questioned By Dan McCue For more than two decades, it’s been among the most mysterious governmental relationships in Columbia: the one between the state Insurance Reserve Fund and the broker, Competitive Insurance Group LLC, that handles its $20.8 million catastrophic windstorm insurance policy.
Senator aims to quell illegal immigration By Staff reports State Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell is leading an effort to amend the U.S. Constitution to give states unprecedented authority to control illegal immigrants living within their borders.
China is state’s fastest growing export market By Molly Parker Thomas Friedman may have coined the phrase “The World is Flat” with his best-selling book released in 2005, but the S.C. Department of Commerce is attempting to logistically help flatten it for entrepreneurs who might find the international market a daunting place to do business.
Port surpasses federal mandate on clean fuel The S.C. State Ports Authority is making the move to cleaner-burning ultra-low-sulfur diesel fuel three years ahead of a federal mandate.
Entrepreneur is now focused on ‘getting a life’ By Kathleen Dayton As a young man, Hank Holliday drove a sightseeing bus, painted houses and waited tables at Walt Disney World. A Charleston native, Holliday studied business at the University of South Carolina and spent a decade as an investment banker before launching into the hospitality industry with the purchase of Wild Dunes Resort. One thing he said he would never do is own a restaurant. Now he has three.
SCE&G balks at bid order SCE&G has asked the state Public Service Commission to reconsider a recent order that requires the state’s regulated electric utilities to issue requests for proposals when seeking additional electricity to fulfill peak generation needs.
Orangeburg’s fortunes are turning around By Dan McCue Orangeburg County economic development officials have long believed that the eastern part of their 1,100-square-mile county, with the crossroads of Interstate 26 and Interstate 95 within 70 miles of the Port of Charleston, is the ideal location for distribution companies looking to ship products throughout the southeastern United States.
Clyburn vows to fund logistics triangle cloverleaf By Dan McCue U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., believes a new cloverleaf interchange at the crossroads of Interstate 95 and S.C. Highway 301 is so vital to the development of Orangeburg’s Global Logistics Triangle that he’s vowed to reorder his legislative priorities to get the project funded.
Attorney: Leadership change needed By Dan McCue The situation surrounding the state Insurance Reserve Fund underscores why the leadership of South Carolina is in serious need of an overhaul, says an attorney advising a group that seeks governmental reform.
House bill adds wind damage to flood insurance plan By Molly Parker The U.S. House of Representatives earlier this month passed a controversial proposal to expand the National Flood Insurance Program to include wind damage, even as President Bush threatened to veto the plan, saying it would encourage people to build in vulnerable coastal areas.
Law school to occupy former furniture store By Kathleen Dayton The ghosts of retail will have to make way for books when a former King Street store is converted into classroom space for the Charleston School of Law.
Wi-Fi signal blocked By Shelia Watson After two years of a start-and-stop course of action, the citywide Wi-Fi project has stalled, with the city terminating its contract with Widespread Access, the primary vendor. In light of similar municipal Wi-Fi projects across the nation being scuttled, the question of Internet access covering the Charleston peninsula may not be “When?” but “Why?”
Historic Middleburg Plantation up for bid By Kathleen Dayton If the median price of a Lowcountry home is $211,000, what is the price of Middleburg Plantation, a late 17th-century home surrounded by 326 pristine acres along the Cooper River?
SCRA receives contract as ‘preferred vendor’ By Shelia Watson A recently signed contract between the South Carolina Research Authority and the U.S. General Services Administration will put the SCRA into the position of competing for business the organization otherwise might not have been able to get.
Consortium receives $5M contract By Shelia Watson A consortium managed by Advanced Technology Institute, one of the South Carolina Research Authority’s affiliates, has received a contract worth $5 million to develop manufacturing technologies to support the nation’s defense industrial base.
City attempts to clarify permit requirements By Shelia Watson The e-mail Tom Scholtens sent out was meant to settle the matter of which repair jobs will require permits in the city of Charleston. But amid the nods of agreement, there are still shrugs of frustration from contractors working in the city.
Native son seeks to boost foundation activity By Dan McCue S. Guilds Hollowell Jr. returned to his hometown on a mission. A native Charlestonian, Hollowell left South Carolina in 1979 to attend Bowdoin College in Maine and, after E.F. Hutton bought the futures trading business he founded between classes, he stayed on in chilly New England.
Merchants say they’re bullish on Broad Street By Dan McCue Every once in awhile, it still happens, attorney R. Spencer Roddey said. Someone will drive into Charleston, park beside a meter and walk door-to-door until they find a lawyer to champion their cause.
Banks tap into social causes to lure customers By Shelia Watson No so long ago, the incentives banks used to gain customers were simple: The customer let the bank hold his money, and he was given back interest. And a toaster.
TDRs: The new smart-growth tool? By Shelia Watson Sprawl in the area is a growing concern. Literally. On the SprawlCity.org Web site, which is devoted to tracking instances of sprawl throughout the country, heading the list of factors that have been suggested as the culprit in sprawl are population growth and the land-use and consumption choices.
ATM surcharge fees are filling bank coffers By Shelia Watson ATM fees are at an all-time high, and for many banks, the sky appears to be the limit. Setting the pace is Bank of America, which last month raised its surcharges for non-customers from $2 to $3 at most of its ATMs nationwide.
House flipping flops for some investors By Kathleen Dayton Where have all the flippers gone? Less than two years ago, many people were quickly making a fortune by buying homes and re-selling them at a profit. Now, with more supply than demand, slower appreciation and cutbacks in sub-prime mortgage lending, those profits no longer come quickly.
Visitor survey shows affluent trend By Shelia Watson Visitors to the area tend to be more prosperous these days, spending more time and more money in the Holy City, and they’re coming back again and again.
Charleston moms rock the business cradle By Lindsay Street In spite of the childproof locks and baby gates, risk looms large at Emily Poland’s house in West Ashley. In June, Poland launched a baby-food company called Organic Baby Grub. She is simultaneously running the business and raising her five-year-old son and one-year-old daughter.
SCRA to assist in global manufacturing technology By Shelia Watson Preserving technical data is a problem that plagues Bob Kiggans.“There’s the question of how you preserve technical information on the things we’re building today,” said Kiggans, whose work as president of the South Carolina Research Authority’s federal sector puts him in the midst of an enormous amount of technical data every day.
Connecting with the Net Generation community By David L. Rawle The numbers are staggering. MySpace now has more than 200 million members. New members are signing up at the rate of 2 million a week. It’s the third most popular Web site in this country. Some weeks, it’s No. 1. MySpace was founded just four years ago.
Sales lessons from the Riverdogs By John Carroll Home season is over for the Charleston Riverdogs. That means it will be several months before fans once again can spend a leisurely summer evening at The Joe and enjoy minor league baseball here in the Lowcountry.
Year’s end: Close on gifts, wrap up loose ends By June Bradham Q. The summer is over and my organization wants to prepare for our final push before the end of the year. What should we focus on?
If you really want it, I’ll drop my price! By Jeffrey Gitomer I went to the National. I collect sports memorabilia, and the National is where everyone who is a serious collector or dealer goes. People fly in from all over the world to buy and sell every kind of sports collectible imaginable.
Coalition charged up to promote plug-in hybrid cars By Kristen Poland It’s tough enough remembering to charge your cell phone and iPod each night, but soon the most important thing to plug in before you head to bed might be your car. A push to educate consumers about the benefits and advantages of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in North and South Carolina is kicking off in Charleston this month with the launch of the Plug-In Hybrid Coalition of the Carolinas.
CaroLinks investors file lawsuit: Seek injunction, receiver appointment By Dan McCue Two of CaroLinks’ biggest initial investors are suing the company in the wake of revelations that the S.C. Attorney General’s office is investigating the firm and its founder, Lucy Duncan-Scheman, for securities fraud.
