Mattress storein Mount Pleasant, SC

The East Cooper portion of Charleston County never had enough agriculture or industry in the age of railroads to lure a significant railroad line, so unlike West Ashley, which benefits from two abandoned railroad rights of way having been converted into walking and biking trails, Mount Pleasant has few paths connecting its neighborhoods, schools, parks, shops and job centers.

A few years ago, Mount Pleasant leaders hatched a plan to change that: They began to envision what came to be called “Mount Pleasant Way,” a 47-mile trail network that loops through portions of the town from the Cooper River to its northernmost neighborhoods. We strongly support this proposed trail system not only because it offers obvious recreational benefits to walkers, runners and cyclists, but also because it eventually can provide an important transportation complement to the town’s road system, the main arteries of which remain congested even after recent widenings and other improvements. We urge elected officials to get it realized as soon as practicable.

The vision is built around a primary spine of 20 to 25 miles, from the town’s Memorial Waterfront Park to a point past Wando High School, with secondary routes woven in along the way.

The good news is that the town has not had to start from scratch: It already has about 9 miles of multiuse paths that form the first segments of the way. And almost 40% of the 47-mile network either exists or is expected to be constructed through approved road projects that are scheduled to be built in the coming years, such as the final segment of Billy Swails Boulevard (part of the Hungryneck Boulevard corridor), Vaughn Ed Kee Parkway and the S.C. Highway 41 widening.

So far, as reporter Jocelyn Grzeszczak has noted, only a small part of Mount Pleasant Way’s progress has come through the Charleston County greenbelt program. But that finally has begun to change. Charleston County Council recently committed almost $2.5 million in county greenbelt funding to three segments: a mile-long trail along Mathis Ferry Road from Fifth Avenue to Eagle Street; a mile-long segment along U.S. Highway 17 from Porchers Bluff Road to Park West Boulevard; and slightly more than a half mile trail along Ben Sawyer Boulevard, from McCants Drive to Cove Bay Lane. That comes on top of recent funding for other small sections along Mathis Ferry and Whipple roads that are being designed.

We hope more greenbelt grants eventually will be on the way: The town is wise to commit its share of that county money toward buying right-of-way or recreational easements needed for Mount Pleasant Way, and town officials also should pursue other grants that could help it get built sooner. It would be a significant boost if a federal grant for $12 million for other Mount Pleasant Way spine segments is awarded by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s RAISE grant program, but other grants and nonprofit support still could and should play a role.

There’s no exact total price tag at this point, but projections for acquiring the property and developing the trail with all its amenities, such as pocket parks, pet amenities and possibly public restrooms, have reached as high as $100 million. As with many ambitious projects, local leaders need to pursue them with an even mix of urgency — to ensure as much progress is made as quickly as possible — and patience, since it’s obvious it can’t all be done at once — not this year or even this decade.

But the realization of Mount Pleasant Way, however long it takes, will be a crucial gift that will improve the quality of life for those living in or simply visiting Mount Pleasant for generations to come.

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MOUNT PLEASANT — A 20-year-old home overlooking Charleston Harbor at the mouth of Shem Creek has set a new residential sales record for South Carolina’s fourth-largest municipality.

The 7,015-square-foot, Southern-style mansion at 100 Haddrell St. in Mount Pleasant was sold April 17 for $14.95 million, far above the previous record of $8.65 million set two years ago for another home in the town’s pricey Old Village area.

The new owner is 100 Beach LLC, according to Charleston County land records.

The sale appeared to be an all-cash deal, as no mortgage has been recorded with the Register of Deeds. It was an off-market transaction, meaning the home wasn’t publicly marketed or listed.

The 1.32-acre property last changed hands in 2010, when the previous owners bought the five-bedroom, 5½-bathroom house for $7.5 million, setting a new record residential sale price at the time for Mount Pleasant.

Built in 2003, the waterfront house includes a dock, elevator, three-car garage and a saltwater pool.

Nancy Hoy with Carolina One Real Estate represented the sellers. Alex Brener, who was with William Means Real Estate at the time of the sale but has since joined Carolina One, represented the buyer.

The transaction suggests that the upper stratosphere of the residential market is largely unaffected by rising interest rates and other economic challenges.

Last month, a few blocks southeast of Shem Creek, a home at 205 Ferry St, was sold for $8.4 million.

Last week, in downtown Charleston, a pre-Revolutionary War-era house at 13-15 Meeting St. changed hands for $12.6 million.

On Sullivan’s Island, three homes have fetched prices ranging from nearly $8 million to more than $10 million this year.

“As Charleston continues to grow and gets more and more exposure, we are definitely attracting more serious high-dollar buyers to our community,” said Michael Scarafile, president of Carolina One, the largest-volume residential real estate agency in the Lowcountry.

The uptick in interest by deep-pocketed buyers for luxury housing started with COVID-19 as people began to work remotely and sought a better quality of life, Scarafile said.

“That hasn’t stopped,” he added.

Lyles Geer, president of William Means Real Estate, said the recent flurry of big-ticket purchases is being driven in part by low inventory levels for top-tier homes.

“There is a lack of supply in the ultra-luxury market,” Geer said. “When those homes do become available, they fetch a much higher price.”

MOUNT PLEASANT — No new apartment or condominium developments have been allowed since early 2017 in South Carolina’s fourth-largest city, and Town Council members are moving to extend that ban into 2025.

The town’s elected leaders also just slashed the number of homes that would be allowed above businesses, drawing criticism from real estate professionals.

Josh Dix, government affairs director for the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors, said Mount Pleasant has developed a culture “of privilege and exclusion” and is acting more like a homeowner’s association in a gated community than a large town.

Councilman Jake Rambo took offense at Dix’s suggestion that increasing development restrictions have been making housing less affordable.

Mount Pleasant has three or four times the population it had when he was growing up there, Rambo said, but amid all that growth and development the town has become more expensive and less diverse.

The town’s population is more than 91 percent white and the median single-family home price was $750,000 in the least expensive part of the town, according to January figures.

Dix and other real estate professionals acknowledge that newer apartments in Mount Pleasant are far from affordable but say restricting apartment construction can drive up rents in the region.

“When you just stop, there are some unintended consequences,” Rob Woodul, a town resident who is president of South Carolina Realtors this year said prior to the council meeting. “When you choke off supply, it drives up prices.”

But choking off supply is just what Mount Pleasant has done, very deliberately and in response to the wishes of the majority of voters. Controlling residential growth and traffic have been talking points in each recent election.

On Feb. 14 the council made its latest moves, voting unanimously to reduce the number of residences allowed in commercial areas and to give initial approval to a two-year extension of the apartment and condo moratorium.

“We don’t want any more,” Councilwoman Laura Hyatt said after the meeting. “We don’t need any more.”

At the same time, many council members agree that Mount Pleasant needs more housing that people, including town employees, teachers and hospital workers, can afford. The town describes that as “attainable housing” and is relying on the private sector to create it.

Both the moratorium and the reduction in the number of residences allowed in commercial areas carve out exceptions for attainable housing.

“This is a big thing for affordability tonight,” said Mayor Will Haynie.

Real estate professionals have predicted that no such housing will be created under the town’s exceptions because they are too strict and won’t make sense financially.

Specifically, Town Council reduced the number of homes allowed in mixed commercial-residential developments — homes above businesses — from 12 per acre to four, but allowed for four more if they qualify as “attainable” housing for middle-income buyers or renters.

That would prohibit future developments similar to Shelmore Village, a collection of three-story buildings with homes above offices and shops that was built in 2006.

At an earlier meeting about the down-zoning, Daniel Doyle, chief operating officer and director of development for The Beach Co., said expecting developers to make half of the residences in a development “attainable housing” units won’t work financially.

The moratorium on apartments and condos also includes an exemption for attainable housing. That exception has been included in the town’s moratoriums since 2019, and no such multifamily developments have been proposed during that time.

The stated purpose of the moratorium extension is to give the town needed time to complete a rewrite of Mount Pleasant’s zoning code, to match up with its most recent Comprehensive Plan. Earlier versions of the moratorium were said to give the town’s infrastructure time to catch up with development.

The restrictions come at a time when the Charleston area is facing an affordable housing crisis, soaring apartment rents and a shortage of housing for sale.

Mount Pleasant’s neighbors, the cities of Charleston and North Charleston, have seen soaring demand for apartment construction during the time Mount Pleasant has had a moratorium in place. Mount Pleasant and the two neighboring cities are three of South Carolina’s four largest municipalities.

Charleston issued permits for development of 2,213 multifamily units in 2022 and 2021, according to the city, and more than 7,500 since Mount Pleasant’s continuous moratorium started in 2017.

Nearly 48 percent of residences in Charleston are in multifamily developments, according to the city. In Mount Pleasant, multifamily homes accounted for 27 percent of residences as of 2020, and no new ones have been permitted for years.

In North Charleston, 5,631 apartment units were in some stage of the permitting process during the past two years, according to the city. Some of those were under construction and were likely permitted prior to 2021, but had not yet received certificates of occupancy.

“We need all the housing we can get, and at all price points,” said Dix, prior to the Town Council meeting.

“Mount Pleasant is not an HOA,” said Dix, who also chairs Charleston County’s Housing Committee. “If they want to be a gated community, that’s another discussion.”

The town’s prohibition on new apartment developments began in 2016, ended briefly, then came back in 2017 and has remained in place. Apartment buildings developed since that time were either permitted before the moratoriums began, or were allowed due to a legal settlement.

The town also had a permit allocation system from 2001 into 2008, prompted by concerns that home construction was outpacing the town’s ability to keep up with road improvements and public services.

As in 2021, allowing the existing apartment and condo moratorium to expire this year would not have resulted in new apartment buildings because of the existing permit allocation system.

“Even if it does go away, there are no multifamily permits,” said Michele Reed, the town’s Planning, Land Use and Neighborhoods director, prior to the council meeting.

The permit allocation system is in place until February 2024, and could be extended, she said.

There have been other South Carolina towns and cities that temporarily halted permitting for apartments, but none have done so for as long as Mount Pleasant.

MOUNT PLEASANT — Town Council has approved borrowing $50 million for a park and recreation initiative that voters narrowly approved in a November referendum, setting those plans in motion ahead of a coming property tax increase.

Most of the money, about $40 million, will be used to create a new park complex on more than 120 acres the town bought in 2010 for that purpose on Rifle Range Road just north of Six Mile Road.

The rest will improve existing facilities and expand a town bike/pedestrian trail network.

The first project the money will fund is renovations of the Park West swimming pool setup.

“That’s fully designed and we are going through permitting,” Director of Recreation Steve Gergick said.

The pool space doesn’t have air conditioning, heat, lockers or family changing rooms. All that will change, Gergick said, and the town will begin the process of choosing a construction company for the work in February.

The Rifle Range Road park plan is expected to relieve pressure on the town’s overwhelmed playing fields and courts while providing new amenities in a central location.

The only hint of the park’s existence now is a small parking lot and a trailhead leading into the woods and wetlands. Plans call for soccer fields, pickleball and tennis courts, a gymnasium, a network of trails, performance pavilion, fishing piers and more.

Becky Williamson, who coached tennis at Wando High School for 12 years before retirement, said it’s been hard to find available courts in recent years.

“People are moving here in droves and many of them play tennis,” she said.

Al Bradshaw-Whittemore, local ambassador for the United States Pickleball Association, is looking forward to the eight pickleball courts planned at the new park.

“It’s exploded, pickleball,” he told Town Council at a Jan. 10 meeting. “Every time I teach I have more and more people.”

Following council’s approval for borrowing $50 million, the town expects to issue bonds Jan. 27. Proposals to the town from architectural and design firms hoping to work on the new park are due the same day.

“We’ll have to go through a full design process and permitting,” Gergick said. “I would expect construction to begin in 2024.”

“It’s going to be a jewel for the town, it really is,” he said.

The town’s park site is adjacent to a Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission property that has not been improved. The combined 245 acres were purchased together in 2010 for $20 million, mostly using county greenbelt money.

Mount Pleasant is an affluent suburb with low property taxes, and the November referendum to raise the tax rate to pay for the park and recreation projects barely passed by a vote of 20,925 to 20,254.

Charleston County dropped plans for a tax-raising referendum to fund affordable housing in 2022, partly because the town’s referendum would be on the ballot in the same election. A majority of Mount Pleasant voters had previously rejected referendums on countywide housing and town parks.

Property owners can expect the town’s portion of their annual tax bill to rise by 10 percent starting with the bills that go out in October. The tax increase is expected to remain in place for 15 years to pay off the debt, which will be more than $50 million with interest.

The impact on tax bills will vary depending on the value of a property and whether it’s residential or commercial. A person with a home valued at $500,000 for tax purposes would pay another $80 yearly, for example.

Two members of the nine-person Town Council had opposed holding the referendum: Mayor Will Haynie and Councilwoman Brenda Corley. On Jan. 10 they joined a unanimous vote to do as voters asked and borrow the $50 million.

An office and warehouse development encompassing nearly 500,000 square feet of new construction is in the works for northern Mount Pleasant.

Charlotte-based developer Cameron Property Co., an affiliate of Madison Capital Group, wants to build three buildings on about 60 acres northwest of the Faison Road and Park Avenue Boulevard intersection, according to plans presented to state environmental regulators.

The proposed structures, in the master-planned Carolina Park development, will serve as flexible space with offices in the front and storage or showrooms in the rear, according to Lance Ravenscraft with Madison Capital Group.

“Technically, everything is good to go,” he said. “It’s a great piece of real estate. The focus is on closing the land (purchase) right now.”

Plans show the largest building will be 187,100 square feet. A second structure will be 181,790 square feet while a third would be 113,400 square feet. More than 400 parking spaces also are planned with the project.

Site plans call for the structures to be up to 42 feet high, but Ravenscraft said the clearance will probably be about 10 feet less than that, with a height similar to the nearby Costco Wholesale store.

He foresees the business park as having tenants that need office and storage space such as biomedical companies or those that make items such as home building products.

“I can’t see it being a distribution site,” he said. “They all want to go up Interstate 26.”

Ravenscraft also pointed to tight credit markets and high construction costs as affecting the timing of future site development.

“I don’t foresee construction starting anytime soon,” he said.

Carolina Park spokesman Brian Keels confirmed the proposed development and said the land use has long been a part of the community’s master plan.

“That area has already been zoned for light industrial,” Keels said. “There just hasn’t been that much demand for things in the trade area in Carolina Park.”

The 1,700-acre Carolina Park development is mostly a residential neighborhood that also includes a hospital, other health care services, schools, fire station, library, churches, senior care facilities, apartments and commercial enterprises.

The wooded, undeveloped tract being eyed for flex development is owned by Chris Marino of Lerato LLC of Mount Pleasant. Marino did not respond for comment on the proposed project.

The land has not changed hands, Ravenscraft said.

The property sits between Charleston Ear, Nose, Throat & Allergy and Gerber Collision & Glass on Faison Road. A storage facility is planned just north of the Gerber site.

The property also abuts the southern portion of Mount Pleasant Regional Airport’s clear zone.

Elliott Summey, CEO of the Charleston County Aviation Authority, which owns the East Cooper airfield, said he doesn’t think the proposed development will interfere with aircraft operations since it’s not directly in line with the runway.

He also noted the residential development that has sprung up closer to the airfield in recent years as posing more of a threat to aircraft operations.

Mount Pleasant Mayor Will Haynie was not familiar with the proposed business park and said the town is not involved in the project because it is part of the Carolina Park planned development agreement that has been in place for several years.

“If it fits the master plan and they don’t need any major changes, it just goes in,” the mayor said. “I just hope it’s not a storage facility.”