Mattress storein James Island, SC

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The Charleston County School District confirmed Tuesday it has placed a newly-promoted principal on administrative leave.

Carolyn Anderson, the principal of Septima P. Clark Academy was placed on leave pending an investigation, district spokesman Andy Pruitt said Tuesday.

However, because it is “a personnel issue,” Pruitt said the district declined to reveal what is being investigated.

Anderson was promoted to the principal position on Friday after serving as interim principal of the school since the beginning of the school year. Throughout her career, she held positions at a number of other Charleston County School District schools.

The district says the decision to place her on administrative leave has nothing to do with fights at her school reported Monday.

District officials said multiple fights placed the school on “hold” for a time Monday afternoon. Charleston County deputies helped bring the fights under control. It was not immediately clear whether anyone was seriously injured or how many students were involved. The district would respond to the incidents per its discipline protocol, Pruitt said.

Anderson began her career in the district in 1989 at Burke High School as a teacher assistant, according to a release. She later served as a Career and Technical Education teacher for several years before joining the staff at Brentwood Middle School in North Charleston as an Advancement via Individual Determination teacher.

In 2009, she joined Morningside Middle School as a leadership teacher where she designed a curriculum around character and leadership skills. Two years later, she became an assistant administrator at the district’s Sixth Grade Academy at the Ron McNair campus before taking a position as a career and technology teacher at Jerry Zucker Middle School.

She became an assistant principal at North Charleston High School in 2017.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from South Carolina State University, a Master of Business Administration from Webster University, and a Master of Education in Secondary Administration and Supervision from Charleston Southern University.

Anderson has also served as a South Carolina Teacher Mentor from 2008 to 2017 and is the founder and director of Anderson Alpha Angels, LLC, an all-girls’ elementary, middle and high school team program designed to cultivate the personal strengths of young women through stepping, the district’s release states.

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JAMES ISLAND, S.C. (WCIV) — A new medical facility is coming to James Island. Prep work on Trident Health’s new freestanding ER is expected to kick off this week.

Trident Health officials say in just a year’s time from now, the James Island facility will give more immediate access to emergency care residents in the area.

While rain delayed the official groundbreaking Monday, it will not slow down the work that will begin onsite. Trident Health officials say site prep is expected to begin in the coming days and materials will soon be brought to the new location at 945 Folly Road, located right across from the Palmetto Goodwill.

The $12.5 million facility will have 11 in-patient beds to start out, with the ability to grow to fit even more beds. It will be equipped with advanced imaging and diagnostic labs, as well as stroke and behavioral health telemedicine services.

Trident’s President and CEO Christina Oh says it was her connection to similar underserved communities which pushed her to expand Trident’s resources to the James Island area.

“It's really exciting to see that now we have an opportunity to bring emergency services and all the associated care that comes with that to a community that's needed it for a very long time. I’m from southern West Virginia, so I have a special passion, especially with my family coming from a public health background, I have a special passion for bringing health care, especially emergency care to communities that traditionally have not been exposed to it,” Oh said.

This will be Trident’s fourth freestanding Emergency Room facility, adding to locations in Monck’s Corner, Brighton Park and North Charleston, whose facilities served over 150,000 patients in 2021 alone.

A free-standing ER facility allows for the same emergency medical care given at larger medical center, like Trident Medical Center’s headquarters in North Charleston. However, the services would be within a smaller facility right in a community’s backyard.

Doctors say that not having to drive the extra 30 to 40 minutes to a medical center or ER facility can be the difference between life and death.

Facilities like the James Island ER can help stabilize patients in need of immediate care in situations such as strokes, heart attacks and other high trauma injuries until they can get to a larger medical center for further treatment.

The ER can also alleviate pressure on emergency departments at larger facilities when they are at capacity.

Trident Medical Center’s facilities helped over 350,000 people annually over the course of the pandemic and doctors say it was the challenges faced during those times which made expanding their resources a primary concern.

“I think COVID brought to light how important it was to have everybody to make sure that everybody has access to health care and to high quality health care,” Emergency Medical Physician with Trident Health, Ibrahim Isa said. “So when you improve your outreach and improve how easy it is for people to seek emergency medical care, you can actually improve outcomes and how healthy people are in some of these communities.”

The freestanding ER on James Island will be open for use 24/7 and is expected to be up and running by April of 2023.

The original groundbreaking ceremony was set for today at 10 a.m. Monday, but due to weather conditions, it will be pushed back two weeks to Monday, May 2 at the same time.

A recent update of the long-awaited Mark Clark Expressway extension sets the new cost estimate at a whopping $2.35 billion, giving opponents another reason to oppose it and prompting several members of Charleston County Council to suggest a pause.

The proposed extension would transform I-526 from its end at Savannah Highway in West Ashley to a parkway across Johns Island to the James Island Connector. The highway currently connects Mount Pleasant, Daniel Island and North Charleston.

Construction is planned to begin in 2028, according to the state Department of Transportation (DOT), with an estimated two or three years of litigation beforehand. The extension has been contentious since the State Infrastructure Bank voted to fund it in 2007. Opponents from Johns and James islands to downtown have argued that the road does little to address the traffic issues plaguing Johns and James islands and will lead to the sort of explosive development that followed the completion of 526 to Mount Pleasant in the late 1990s. Proponents have long argued that it’s a critical component of Lowcountry transportation infrastructure.

“I think it has just become a worse and worse idea as time wore on, and that’s unfortunately a common theme,” Johns Island resident John Zlogar said. “Engaging the people before you come up with solutions is a great idea — they had a big shindig showing off a lot of information for a preferred alternative.”

Zlogar said he has been following the project on Johns Island since 2016. But project leaders at the state level think it’s important to see the bigger picture. At a Charleston County Finance Committee meeting May 5, DOT representatives gave a presentation to discuss the price increase, as well as the project’s significance and impact.

“It’s very important we remember why this project came to be in the first place … to increase the capacity of the regional transportation system and improve safety and enhance mobility,” project director Jay Mattox told members. “This is not a project for James Island or Johns Island or West Ashley — it’s for the region as a whole.”

Some county officials, however, weren’t convinced.

“In a way, we’ve dodged a bullet here,” County Councilman Dickie Schweers said. “What if we were two or three years into this project right now, and these costs surfaced? For them to increase that much in that short of a time — if we were in the middle of the project … they’d either get us to pay more money or they’d go bankrupt with a project of this size.”

Despite the rising cost, the state’s share is still capped at $420 million. Before, Charleston County would have been on the hook for about $305 million of the project’s previous estimate of $725 million. Now, the county would be expected to pay more than $1.9 billion.

“We, the county, were going to take the bull by the horns on this, and we were going to handle it instead of the DOT. I think that was a tragic mistake by us,” Schweers said. “Now, at $2.3 billion, I question whether it’s too big for this state. This is almost more in the federal scope when you’re talking numbers this big.”

State DOT representatives said the new estimate is high-balled and the actual cost is likely to be lower. But retired Coastal Conservation League founder Dana Beach said the original number is what he’s more interested in.

“It is completely indisputable that the DOT consistently misrepresented the early cost of the project,” Zlogar said. “It never could have been as low as the DOT alleged it was, and we knew that. It was a politically motivated estimate at initially about $420 million. Then that $725-million lowball was just as ridiculous an estimate.”

Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg doubled down on his support for the project after the new estimate was unveiled.

“No question, the cost estimates for major infrastructure projects in South Carolina are exploding, and 526 is no exception,” Tecklenburg said in a statement. “But that doesn’t change the fact that our West Ashley and island residents need and deserve the traffic relief and public safety improvements this project will bring.”

But Zlogar said it would be cheaper and more impactful to tackle the traffic woes facing the county with several smaller, more focused projects rather than one big one. One example is the ongoing Main Road Corridor Project, which is broken up into three sections and has been in the works since 2018. The first phase of the project would widen the existing Main Road flyover between River Road and Savannah Highway.

“There’s other things on Johns Island that can be done to alleviate congestion, like the flyover — it’s going to be great to get that done,” he said. “But the traffic is bad at every intersection, and one thing the county has been talking about doing is five-laning the roads at the lights. If we solve the problems at the intersections, the traffic goes away.

“On Main Road, the traffic is backed up all the way past Mary Ann Point Road, but it’s not because the road isn’t five lanes wide,” Zlogar added. “The same thing for Maybank and River Road. Some improvements have been made, but so many more could help so much more. It really feels like we’re being held hostage by I-526.”

Beach agreed, saying while the project would offer minimal respite for commuters, it’s far too expensive for how little it actually addresses.

“We have gotten plenty of engineering that illustrates there are vastly less expensive and more effective alternatives to deal with the congestion of West Ashley and Johns Island with none of the negative repercussions and secondary impacts this project would have created,” he said.

What happens next?

It’s not yet clear where individual County Council members stand on the Mark Clark Expressway project, but several have expressed concern about the skyrocketing price and environmental impacts. Council Chairman Teddie Pryor said a vote would be taken on the measure at a future council meeting, after the state Department of Transportation refines the cost estimates — an undertaking that could take several months.

Councilman Kylon Middleton said he would like to familiarize himself more with the project specifics and changes before sharing his opinion publicly. Other council members were more vocal — with council members Henry Darby expressing full opposition to the proposal, and Jenny Honeycutt saying she looked forward to renegotiating with state leaders in the future.

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A little over a month ago, first-year Beaufort High baseball coach Zach Jacobs saw his team at a crossroads. The Eagles had dropped three straight heading into a challenging spring break tournament, but the back half of the Region 7-4A schedule was favorable. Some young talent was beginning to emerge, but the chemistry was missing something.

Jacobs did something few first-time head coaches would have dared and dismissed a couple of veteran players from the team and replaced them on the roster with young players who had bought into the new coaching staff’s team-first philosophy.

The Eagles went 1-2 in that tournament with both losses coming in hard-fought games against quality opponents, and they’ve been on a tear ever since, winning five of their last six regular-season games before ripping through the Class 4A District 6 tournament with three straight wins to punch their ticket to the Lower State bracket for a second straight year. Beaufort travels to Hartsville to open the double-elimination tournament on Thursday.

“There’s a new feeling with this group that they feel like they belong and can compete with anybody,” Jacobs said. “They play together and have each other’s back. It’s become one big family.”

The Eagle family endured some ups and downs this year, but they’ve been flying high lately and claimed the district crown with a 4-1 win over visiting Aiken on Monday after advancing to the championship round with a pair of extra-inning victories.

Beaufort ace PJ Daley was dealing in the district finale, striking out five and allowing just four hits and one walk over six innings while allowing one unearned run, and Zack Talbert struck out two in a perfect seventh to earn the save and scored twice out of the leadoff spot, setting the table for Jacobs’ “get him on, get him over, get him in” brand of baseball.

Talbert led off the bottom of the first with a single, swiped second and moved to third on a passed ball, and scored on the first of Mason Connelly’s two hits. After the Hornets tied it in the fourth, the Eagles turned the momentum back in their favor with some serious small ball in the fifth. Malcom Webb bunted his way on and took second on a sacrifice bunt, then scored when Talbert reached on an error. The Eagles’ leadoff man then stole second and came around to score on an error for a 3-1 lead.

Beaufort tacked on an insurance run in the sixth when Logan Brutcher and Carter Bowersox came up with back-to-back singles to start the inning and Brutcher came home on Webb’s sacrifice fly.

Win or lose at Hartsville on Thursday, the Eagles will be back in action Saturday, facing either James Island or Airport.

The proprietors of a former restaurant on James Island are bringing a new venue to the previous location.

The owners of British pub and eatery My Father’s Moustache in Mount Pleasant plan to open a second location at the former site of J. Paul’z, which they once operated, at 1739 Maybank Highway.

A sign for the new venue sits beside the door at the property, which is under renovation. The owners also recently applied for an on-site alcohol license through Premier Pubs LLC.

The 3,200-square-foot outparcel property is in the Harris Teeter-anchored James Island Center. J. Paul’z closed about a decade ago, and a restaurant called Cure operated there for a few years after opening in 2015. The site has been vacant for a couple of years.

An opening date for the new My Father’s Moustache has not been announced. The East Cooper venue’s website says it’s the Charleston-area headquarters of English Premier League football (soccer to Americans). It’s at 1405 Ben Sawyer Boulevard near Publix supermarket.

The owners did not immediately respond for comment about the new venture.

New threads

A new women’s clothing and accessories shop is now open in downtown Charleston.

Ala von Auersperg opened May 6 at 103 Church St., offering what it calls “fluid, supple, travel-friendly fabrics,” in a 950-square-foot shop with a side courtyard.

The brick-and-mortar store follows a pop-up appearance in 2021. The new shop is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday.

On Target

Target Corp.’s new compact Charleston store opens May 15 at 211 King St.

It will include a pharmacy, drive-up order pickup, grab-and-go food and beverage options, travel essentials, school supplies and other items usually found in its small-format stores near college campuses and dense urban and suburban neighborhoods.

The 30,000-square-foot store near the College of Charleston will employ about 60 people and be the fifth location in the Lowcountry for the Minneapolis-based big-box retailer.

Altogether, the company employs 850 people in the downtown shop as well as in its standard-size stores in Mount Pleasant, North Charleston, Summerville and West Ashley.

Last year in the Charleston area, Target donated nearly $510,000 in cash grants and products to area nonprofits, including 280,000 pounds of food to local food banks and more than 2,000 volunteer hours in community service, according to a spokeswoman.

Store hours for the new location in Majestic Square at King and Market streets will be 8 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday.

Fresh start

A roadside fresh vegetable and fruit stand is ready for its seasonal debut.

Ruke’s, owned by Arthur Brown, will be open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Saturday starting May 18 at 378 Mathis Ferry Road near Holy Trinity AME Church.

Getting pampered

A European day spa has launched a second Lowcountry location and will host a grand opening event soon.

Spa Azure owner Christine Ingram opened the new place to be pampered in The Jasper mixed-use project at 320 Broad St. on May 3.

The spa offers facial and body treatments, anti-aging methods, skincare consultations as well as an array of beauty services such as waxing and tinting.

The new location features four private treatment rooms, a relaxation lounge and retail beauty products. It’s open 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

Spa Azure will host a grand opening party at the new location from 5-8 p.m. May 19. The free event is open to the public and will offer special discounts and a big giveaway.

The other Spa Azure is at 1055 Johnnie Dodds Blvd. in Mount Pleasant.