Roof Repair in Jedburg, SC

Three new shops are in the works for the Charleston region’s growing suburbs, and a longtime downtown retail business is moving to a new location.

A butcher shop is opening near Summerville while a new coffee shop is in the works in Goose Creek and a new fast-food restaurant is planned near Jedburg.

Business partners Devin Kelly and Hunter Bishop, a former Stingrays hockey player, plan to open New York Butcher Shoppe at 502 Nexton Square Drive in Nexton Square off U.S. Highway 17A by late August.

The two Charleston residents bought the franchise last October and purchased development rights southward to Savannah. They plan to explore options for new venues in the Beaufort/Hilton Head area as well as Savannah at a future date.

In addition to select cuts of beef, chicken, pork, veal and lamb, the shop will offer prepared dishes along with a selection of wines and specialty items such as cheeses, exotic sausages and international groceries.

“We will also have something that the other restaurants don’t offer,” said Kelly, a former Blackbaud Inc. employee. “We will have an in-house smoker, and we will offer some cooked meats as well.”

The shop will be open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.

The New York Butcher Shoppe chain has eight locations in South Carolina, including three in its home base of Greenville. Others are on Daniel Island and the Isle of Palms and in Mount Pleasant, Columbia and Indian Land near Charlotte.

The Mount Pleasant shop is the original location, Kelly said.

Seven others are located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.

The butcher shop will be the 15th food-and-beverage venue to open in and around Nexton Square. Other restaurants in the shopping center include Halls Chophouse, Taco Boy and D’Allesandro’s Pizza.

As 2023 wrapped up for the hospitality industry, downtown Charleston’s biggest hotel nabbed one more recognition as it prepares to undergo a major overhaul.

The Charleston Place made Condé Nast Traveler’s worldwide “Gold List,” which identified 75 properties as getaway destinations for 2024. They were handpicked by the magazine’s editors.

The 434-room hotel and retail complex at King, Market, Meeting and Hasell streets is the only South Carolina lodging to make the cut and one of 13 in U.S. The international hotels Conde Nast singled out included The Ritz Paris and The Four Seasons Hotel Greshum Palace in Budapest.

According to the accompanying review, The Charleston Place had a “stately European elegance with a heap of Southern charm.” It gave high remarks to the dining and retail scene at the hotel, the lobby’s welcome atmosphere and accessibility to locals and added amenities like childcare and dog sitters on site.

Becky Hubbard, managing director of The Charleston Place, said being recognized by major travel media outlet helps keep the city on the map and that it’s indicative of the local industry’s success.

“When we’re creating these experiences, we’re always thinking about the kind of memories that people are going to take away once they leave,” Hubbard said. “Charleston’s hotels elevate tourism and travel as a whole.”

Last year, Conde Nast readers named Charleston as the most popular for the second year in a row. The streak follows a brief dethroning in 2021 after the city’s decade-long stay in the top spot. Rival publication Travel + Leisure ranked Charleston as the “Best City in the U.S” to visit for the 11th consecutive year.

The Charleston Place owner Beemok Hospitality Collection has a $150 million renovation starting this year. The locally based company owned by Ben Navarro and his family will kick off the overhaul with improvements to the exterior façade and the second-floor banquet spaces, according to management.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - ST. GEORGE, S.C. (WCSC) - Two massive warehouses will soon be coming to Dorchester County after the council voted to go into an agreement with an industrial developer.

The council unanimously approved an agreement with developer Dalfen Industrial that will see the warehouses, totaling over half a million square feet, to be built near Summerville.

The 75-acre complex is located off Deming Way near Hodge Road, which is less than a mile from the Dorchester County Jail. The developer will spend just under $49 million dollars to build the complex, but it’s unclear how many jobs will be created.

John Truluck, the county’s director of economic development, says the development will only benefit county residents.

“It could be that they are able to get a job there,” Truluck said. “They may be driving 20 or 30 miles to work, and they may be able to find a job much closer to them, which even for the same pay would be a raise because they’re not paying for gas money, and that’s time they’re not having to spend on the roads.”

On their website, Dalfen Industrial said the site will be home to two distribution centers, and that some of their tenants include giants like Amazon, U-P-S and FedEx.

Truluck says the county bringing in development like this can help combat inflation, leaving taxes low for county residents.

“The government can raise more money by imposing higher taxes on the people that are already here, or they can bring in new businesses that pay those additional taxes, so they’ll get more services for the same money, in essence,” Truluck said.

Tommy Feagin has lived in Dorchester County since the 1960s.

He hopes the money coming in from these developments will help pay for more infrastructure projects in the future.

“We need a lot more infrastructure because things are stopped up terribly,” he said. “We have several, several, several bottlenecks. Dorchester Road, you can’t get up and down. I-26, you can’t get in and out of Charleston.”

County officials said they expect the two warehouses to be completed in about a year.

What ultimately goes in those warehouses depends on who the developer leases the buildings to.

Copyright 2022 WCSC. All rights reserved.

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) - Some businesses say prioritizing a sense of place in the town of Summerville is most important and sometimes that means new development, despite what some people might think.

Dorchester County has a proposed plan to turn 500 N. Main St., also known as their main county building, into a hotel, retail spaces, a parking garage and more.

Some businesses located in the heart of Summerville, like Eva’s Restaurant, think change is about time.

“If we don’t have growth, we don’t have a future,” general manager Tina Howard said.

Eva’s Restaurant has been serving the town since 1944. With the proposed development, Howard says she’s not worried about competition.

“I think it would benefit us as a small business with, you know, bringing in tourists,” Howard said. “...I don’t feel it would hurt us personally because we have such a strong, established business.”

Diane Frankenberger, the owner of People, Places & Quilts, says she’s watched Summerville grow for over 30 years. She says with the old post office as the new public works art center, the old Coca-Cola company as the new YMCA and an old hardware store as her own business, she believes both the county and town councils prioritize preservation.

“You have to go forward with the future,” Frankenberger said. “We still can’t have the same houses around here and the old town hall and no computers and blah blah blah. And so, it’s keeping a sense of place, but moving forward with an eye towards the future.”

The county has already approved plans to preserve part of the county building, which once was the old hospital, and improve the current Veteran’s monument.

“I think when people are calling names or say, ‘Don’t do something,’ let’s wait and see and work together and make the best use of what we’ve got there,” Frankenberger said.

Howard says she wants her 6-year-old grandson to be able to experience a flourishing Summerville, just like she has all her life.

“A lot of people complain about the growth and ‘People will stop coming here, we’re full, don’t come here,’” Howard said. “Without growth, we don’t have a future. The future is growth.”

Frankenberger says she’s ready to move forward.

“No more gas on the fire,” Frankenberger said. “Let’s put water on the fire.”

Dorchester County provided the following statement about the proposed plan:

Dorchester County is looking forward to having greater capacity and flexibility to complete the following projects from fee revenues of the redevelopment:

Funding to preserve the façade of the old hospital building.

A new civic park and improvements to the Veterans Memorial.

An additional $8 Million in funding to DD2 schools to supplement $2 Million from the TIF.

Provide $20 Million in funding for a Community Recreation Facility in the Summerville area.

Provide $2 Million in additional funding for streetscaping and improvements to Main Street and Cedar Street.

Provide credits for workforce housing for teachers, firefighters, law enforcement, and first responders within the multi-family development for at least 15 years.

A modern County office building and additional Class A Office Space in the downtown area.

A new downtown hotel and restaurant to provide much-needed retail and hospitality amenities in the downtown area.

Create additional parking by providing for the construction of a parking garage in the downtown area.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

Clarius Partners and Stonemont Financial Group have announced that Buildings 3 and 4 are available for lease at the partnership’s Omni Industrial Campus in Summerville, S.C. The two speculative buildings total nearly 971,000 square feet of Class A industrial space.

Bridge Commercial is the exclusive leasing agent in charge of the 1.3 million-square-foot industrial park, expected to be delivered in June 2023.

Omni Industrial Campus is situated on nearly 100 acres, within the Jedburg Industrial Corridor, close to Interstate 26, 22 miles from North Charleston Port, 26 miles from Hugh Leatherman Terminal and within 32 miles of the Port Charleston, one of the fastest-growing ports in the U.S. over the last decade. The development is also situated close to the 4,500-acre, master-planned community Nexton, and other residential areas, allowing future tenants easy access to the market’s workforce.

Designed to serve a variety of users

Bridge Commercial’s team led by Executive Vice Presidents Hagood Morrison and Simons Johnson, President Peter Fennelly and Associate Vice President Will Crowell are the appointed leasing brokers in charge of the development.

The project’s initial building, Building 2, encompassing 360,320 square feet of space is fully preleased to a long-term, build-to-suit tenant. The remaining two buildings will feature 36-foot clear heights, LED lightning and ESFR sprinkler systems. The 364,700-square-foot Building 3, designed to accommodate multiple tenants, will have 305 vehicle parking spots, 79 trailer parking spots, four drive-in doors and 36 dock high doors, while the 606,880-square-foot Building 4, designed for large volume distribution, will have 350 vehicle parking spots, 157 trailer parking spots, four drive-in doors and 64 dock-high doors. Additionally, all three properties will also have a speculative office component, available for occupancy starting June of this year.

READ ALSO: Heightened Industrial Demand Boosts New Lease Rates

The industrial project is the largest option near the Port of Charleston for companies looking for an intermodal distribution point in the Southeast region, Stonemont Managing Principal & CEO Zack Markwell said in a prepared statement.

Earlier this month, Avison Young was tapped as leasing agent in charge of another industrial property under development in the Charleston area. The firm will market for lease a 545,000-square-foot project in Ridgeville, S.C., that is part of Camp Hall Commerce Park, a 6,800-acre master-planned development.

Construction of the biggest speculative industrial project in the Charleston region kicks off this week with a groundbreaking event for the 1.1 million-square-foot development at Crossroads Logistics Center in Summerville.

The site, near the Jedburg Road exit on Interstate 26, is being built out by a partnership between Citimark Realty and Pure Development. The Indianapolis companies formed Citimark Pure Charleston LLC to buy roughly 131 acres fronting I-26 for $8.75 million last year.

Their first building will eclipse by 10 percent the previous record for a local “spec” project — a 1 million-square-foot structure at the nearby Charleston Trade Center.

The Crossroads project is scheduled for completion by late 2022. Plans call for three more buildings to rise in two phases totaling an additional 1.53 million square feet at the Berkeley County site.

Wednesday’s groundbreaking will feature speakers from the State Ports Authority, operator of the Port of Charleston, as well as commercial real estate firm CBRE Inc., which is marketing the project.

The term speculative in this instance means that no tenants have been secured at the time construction begins.

While such projects continue to grow in size and scope, they still don’t approach the region’s biggest-single industrial property. That distinction belongs to the cavernous 3 million-square-foot import hub built just up I-26 in Dorchester County for retail giant Walmart.

The Crossroads project is part of a boom in speculative industrial-grade real estate deals in the Charleston area, particularly along the I-26 corridor from North Charleston to Ridgeville. Almost all of it is being driven by the need to store and sort goods that retailers are importing through Charleston.

Mike White, broker in charge of Daniel Island-based Charleston Industrial, said about 5.1 million square feet of “Class A” space is set to open by the end of this year. Most of that space will be snapped up before a certificate of occupancy is issued, he added.

“The conditions of a high demand and low volume of space available will continue,” White said.

No wonder?

CNN will feature Charleston in its upcoming fourth season of “The Wonder List with Bill Weir,” but it’s not looking to be yet another wonderful tourist piece.

The series is now part of the content catalog at CNN+, the cable network’s subscriber-based streaming service.

The four new shows will focus on “fascinating locations at a critical crossroads brought on by climate change,” according to a written statement last week.

The season kicks off April 21, on the eve of Earth Day.

Weir, who has been CNN’s climate correspondent for about a decade, will anchor reports from Montana, Greenland and Hawaii as well as coastal South Carolina.

In its statement, the network suggested that the Charleston episode will look at the “surging seas and frequent floods” that “batter one of America’s most storied cities and the critical reminders of its slave trade past.”

Material event

A North Charleston-based global textile manufacturer’s next stop in its 232-year journey is in the Lone Star State.

AstenJohnson, which makes specialty fabrics for industrial customers such as paper mill operators, recently picked Waco, Texas, for a new 220,000-square-foot plant that will employ 36 workers.

The $40 million factory is expected to open in 2023 and will make “nonwovens,” a widely used material formed by bonding synthetic fibers through either a chemical, mechanical or heating process.

In this case, the specialty textiles to be made in Waco will be sold to manufacturers in the automotive, aerospace, filtration and piping industries, among others.

A local economic development group provided the 36-acre plant site, and the company qualified for $2 million in public financial assistance from the city and county, according to a report in the Waco Tribune-Herald.

“The long-term prospects for our nonwovens business are excellent,” CEO Kevin Frank said in a written statement. “Customer demand for our products has only been growing. This investment will allow us to satisfy the increasing demand and continue to offer more products and innovation.”

The global company expanded into the nonwoven sector when it acquired a Missouri-based manufacturer in 2014. It bought another plant a few years ago in New Hampshire.

AstenJohnson traces its corporate ancestry to a family-owned wire business that was started in 1790 in Manchester, England. It’s now headquartered on Corporate Road. Its only South Carolina plant is in Clinton.

1M milestone

Boeing South Carolina’s science-and-math-focused education program has learned that it’s reached a major milestone.

The manufacturer, which makes its 787 Dreamliner in North Charleston, announced last week that more than 1 million students had participated in DreamLearners, a STEM-heavy instructional outreach it launched about 10 years ago in the Palmetto State.

As part of the program, school kids have toured the Boeing South Carolina campus and have had the program come to them in their classrooms. During the COVID-19 pandemic, DreamLearners went virtual.

Students do a hands-on paper airplane activity and learn about careers in the core STEM elements of science, technology, engineering and math, as well as advanced manufacturing and aerospace.

More than 7,600 Boeing employees have volunteered to participate in DreamLearners, the company said.

Boeing celebrated hitting the seven-figure milestone last week at North Charleston Elementary School, not far from its 787 Dreamliner campus.

Hey, bow

A Charleston-born business built from formal-wear feathers made famous by celebrities has fashioned a new formation to fete its decade-old creations.

Brackish, a bow-tie retailer that launched after groomsmen’s wedding gifts made from turkey feathers proved popular, is toasting its 10 years in business with a new neckwear adornment called “Cheers.”

The latest version features a turkey feather in the center, a nod to the original design. Its colors — blue, white, green and others — are meant to reflect the Palmetto State from the salty Atlantic to the rolling hills of the Upstate.

Owners Ben Ross and Jeff Plotner, friends from their college days at Wofford, say the commemorative and limited-edition tie “instantly invokes good times with family, friends and, in this case, feathers.”

Lounging about

Edwin Hughes figures he’s spent about half of his adult life at Charlotte Douglas International.

As a member of American Airlines’ Executive Platinum club, he is a frequent visitor to the big Queen City airport, which serves a major hub for the carrier.

Now he has a new place to spend his layovers. A passenger lounge concept that’s already available at Charleston International recently opened its doors at Charlotte Douglas.

The Airports Dimensions-operated Club CLT in Concourse A made its debut March 30. It’s open daily from 5 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. and seats 105. Hughes, who lives in West Ashley, said it’s a welcome refuge from the hustle and bustle at the North Carolina travel waystation that accommodated more than 43 million passengers in 2021.

“If you’ve got a long layover and you need to get some work done or just relax, it’s a great extra amenity,” said Hughes, who travels about 40 weeks out of the year. “If you fly out of Charleston, you’ll either have to go through Charlotte or Atlanta on most flights, so it’s nice to have this place to go if you’re an American flyer.”

Anyone can access the lounge with a $45 day pass. Club CLT is also available to Priority Pass members, a lounge access membership that starts at $99 a year. Customers in the lounge are limited to a three-hour maximum stay. Food and drink are complimentary with entry.

The Club concept also has outposts in Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh and 10 other U.S. airports. Club CHS at Charleston International opened in mid-2019.

As 2023 wrapped up for the hospitality industry, downtown Charleston’s biggest hotel nabbed one more recognition as it prepares to undergo a major overhaul.

The Charleston Place made Condé Nast Traveler’s worldwide “Gold List,” which identified 75 properties as getaway destinations for 2024. They were handpicked by the magazine’s editors.

The 434-room hotel and retail complex at King, Market, Meeting and Hasell streets is the only South Carolina lodging to make the cut and one of 13 in U.S. The international hotels Conde Nast singled out included The Ritz Paris and The Four Seasons Hotel Greshum Palace in Budapest.

According to the accompanying review, The Charleston Place had a “stately European elegance with a heap of Southern charm.” It gave high remarks to the dining and retail scene at the hotel, the lobby’s welcome atmosphere and accessibility to locals and added amenities like childcare and dog sitters on site.

Becky Hubbard, managing director of The Charleston Place, said being recognized by major travel media outlet helps keep the city on the map and that it’s indicative of the local industry’s success.

“When we’re creating these experiences, we’re always thinking about the kind of memories that people are going to take away once they leave,” Hubbard said. “Charleston’s hotels elevate tourism and travel as a whole.”

Last year, Conde Nast readers named Charleston as the most popular for the second year in a row. The streak follows a brief dethroning in 2021 after the city’s decade-long stay in the top spot. Rival publication Travel + Leisure ranked Charleston as the “Best City in the U.S” to visit for the 11th consecutive year.

The Charleston Place owner Beemok Hospitality Collection has a $150 million renovation starting this year. The locally based company owned by Ben Navarro and his family will kick off the overhaul with improvements to the exterior façade and the second-floor banquet spaces, according to management.