Tree Servicein Mount Pleasant, SC

MOUNT PLEASANT — The saying goes that beggars can’t be choosers, and Trader Joe’s certainly doesn’t need to beg for business (if you’ve ever fought for a parking spot on a Sunday afternoon, you know).

The California-based grocery chain has a reputation for being highly selective about where it opens new stores — even if that means choosing a second location a few miles from an existing one.

Trader Joe’s confirmed in January that Mount Pleasant will soon have not one, but two stores in town.

The announcement sparked excitement, praise and a fair amount of grumbling from outside fans of the grocery chain who believe their communities are more deserving of a new Trader Joe’s location. A post about the chain’s plans for Mount Pleasant drew more than 800 comments on The Post and Courier’s Facebook page.

“This is the craziest decision,” one reader groused. “Right around the corner basically from the current one...why not spread out a bit and go to James Island, West Ashley, N. Charleston or Summerville?”

“Do better Trader Joes,” another demanded. “Two locations in the same area is preposterous.”

As one might imagine, the news received a much more favorable reception in Mount Pleasant.

Tasha Blomquist and her son perused the floral offerings in front of the store on a cloudy morning. Blomquist said she stops by the store twice a week and is eager to see a new location, hopefully, in the northern part of town, where she lives.

“I live way in north Mount Pleasant, so I’m happy there might be one there,” Blomquist said. “I think it’s needed though because every time I’m here … I feel like you have to do multiple laps around the parking lot just to find a spot.”

Another shopper, Kelly Crowley, who lives near Brickyard Plantation, said opening a second store will hopefully cut down on crowds.

“We come by here pretty regularly. If you come here on Sunday or even Saturday, it’s lines all the way back into the aisle,” Crowley said.

Though Trader Joe’s has not disclosed where the new store will be, multiple sources have told The Post and Courier the grocery chain is considering the old Bi-Lo building at the foot of the Isle of Palms Connector — a few miles from the store on Johnnie Dodds Boulevard that opened in 2011, and not farther into northern Mount Pleasant as customers like Blomquist would hope.

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The proximity to an existing store seems like a head-scratching move — why does Mount Pleasant get two stores 5 miles apart, bypassing places like Summerville or West Ashley?

Demand for a Trader Joe’s in these areas is high, as evidenced by petitions that attract thousands of signatures calling for the chain to open the shop in their towns and cities.

One such petition from 2020 that called for a store in Summerville earned nearly 5,000 signatures. Another in West Ashley gained over 6,000.

Similar efforts also crop up in Myrtle Beach regularly. The city is one of South Carolina’s fastest-growing, yet you won’t find a Trader Joe’s in the coastal municipality. Former Horry County Director of Planning David Schwerd said he had that conversation over and over during his 30-year tenure.

“’We need Trader Joe’s. Everybody always wants a Trader Joe’s. Pretty much every time a commercial rezoning or development planning comes up, it’s usually the first one that gets mentioned,” Schwerd said.

Jeff Campbell, the University of South Carolina’s department of retailing chair, said grocery stores, particularly Trader Joe’s, are extremely strategic in opening new locations. You won’t see a Trader Joe’s on every corner, and they take their time scouting areas before settling on a city.

“Typically, they would use a variety of metrics in site selection, and while location is still an important consideration, they’ll look at things like projected foot traffic, the demographics of the area, where the current transportation routes are, where competitors are located,” Campbell said.

Myrtle Beach being a hot spot for tourists might not be attractive to the chain either. People who visit the coastal city are looking to stock up for the week, heading to Walmart or Costco for items in bulk, rather than prepackaged, single-serve foods, Campbell said.

People can request that Trader Joe’s consider their city for a new store. Nakia Rohde, a spokesperson for Trader Joe’s, said the company receives “tons” of requests for stores nationwide.

The company doesn’t share much about how it chooses the perfect site for a new Trader Joe’s. But Schwerd has a hunch. He pointed to the region’s median income, age and education level — factors the grocer is thought to consider when choosing sites for a new store.

“They have their undisclosed lists of what they’re looking for in demographics,” Schwerd said. “Even though Trader Joe’s does not list any specific criteria in their evaluation, that’s what they’re looking for. They have an upscale, educated clientele.”

An interview with Joe Coulombe, the store’s founder and namesake, published in the LA Times in 2011 demonstrates this ideology that seems to have stuck with the company: “Unless you have enough well-educated people, Trader Joe’s will not work.”

Because of these factors, Schwerd said Horry County or Myrtle Beach are unlikely to get a Trader Joe’s any time soon.

According to U.S. census data, Myrtle Beach has a median income of $57,713, a median age of 51.5 years and 28.8 percent of residents who hold bachelor’s degrees or higher.

Mount Pleasant’s median age of 41.3 years is slightly higher than the state’s 40.5 years, but in Greenville and Columbia, where the other two Trader Joe’s are located, the median ages are much younger at 35.9 and 28.4, respectively.

“They want younger consumers, they want a little bit better-income consumers,” Campbell said.

Mount Pleasant, where the median income is $114,237 and 66 percent of residents hold a bachelor’s degree, is far above the state’s median income level of roughly $64,000 and where 32.6 percent of the state hold bachelor’s degrees.

So, Trader Joe’s wants to open stores in higher-earning areas with higher volumes of college-educated folks, and Mount Pleasant happens to fit the bill. It fits so well that shoppers will soon find half of South Carolina’s Trader Joe’s in town.

Campbell, who lives in Lexington, said he’d like to welcome a store in his city, but it’s not likely — it’s just not what Trader Joe’s is looking for.

“They’re not trying to sell to everybody. They’re trying to sell to a particular demographic, and that demographic tends to do very well,” Campbell said.

Reach Anna Sharpe at 843-806-6790.

has secured new space in Mount Pleasant at 11 Ewall St.

With a 22,000-square-foot facility and support from the town of Mount Pleasant, the South Carolina Research Authority and , the location is designed to provide a collaborative space to inspire, educate and elevate entrepreneurial organizations, venture capital investment and innovation, according to a news release.

Executive Director Grady Johnson said in an email the additional location for the center “will greatly expand our ability to house entrepreneurs and deliver services to them, like education, etc.”

The Harbor Entrepreneur Center’s objective is to create an entrepreneurial ecosystem for students, veterans, career changers and businesses to develop new enterprises and ideas to grow in the Charleston region, the news release said.

“The town’s economic development strategy specifically calls for a focus on entrepreneurship and innovation,” Mount Pleasant Economic Development Manager Matt Brady said in the news release. “Our partnership with Harbor addresses this directly, and lets the world know that Mount Pleasant is the hub of innovation for South Carolina. We are excited for the companies coming over with HEC and look forward to collaborating with our stakeholders to recruit high-growth firms and create jobs in our community and region.”

The Harbor Entrepreneur Center was recently selected to serve as the lead agent for innovation and entrepreneurship, one of the areas of focus of the One Region Roadmap, part of the strategy of a partnership among the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments, the Charleston Regional Development Alliance and the . The roadmap provides a broad platform for the community to address economic challenges heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as threats to our region’s prosperity and global competitiveness, according to the release.

“Naming the Harbor Entrepreneur Center as the lead agent for innovation and entrepreneurship gives us the opportunity to take the foundation the HEC has built over the past 10 years and create a high-impact resource for the region,” Johnson said in the release. “The town of Mount Pleasant’s ability to immediately recognize this opportunity and provide us with financial support allowed us to quickly propel this project from vision to reality.”

The Harbor Entrepreneur Center a 501c3 non-profit founded in 2012 by local entrepreneurs John Osborne and Patrick Bryant with support from the town of Mount Pleasant.

The center is housed in the Epic Center at the Citadel Mall, 2070 Sam Rittenberg Blvd.

MOUNT PLEASANT — In an ongoing backlash to years of soaring population growth and traffic complaints, this affluent suburb plans to extend strict limits on building permits for another five years.

Just 600 new residences would be permitted yearly in the town of more than 94,000 people, and the actual number would likely be lower.

The yearslong effort to slow residential development by capping building permits is a step no other municipality in South Carolina has taken, but few have experienced growth like Mount Pleasant. The town’s population has roughly doubled since 2000 and tripled since 1990.

“There was concern in the community about our infrastructure being able to keep up with the growth rate, and I don’t think that concern has gone away,” said Councilwoman G.M. Whitley, who put the permit limit extension before Town Council in November.

The measure is scheduled for a Planning Commission hearing Dec. 13, with a final Town Council vote expected in January. The “building permit allocation system” has been in place nearly five years, and instead of expiring in early 2024, it would be extended to 2029.

It’s among many steps the town has taken to thwart rapid growth. There’s also a moratorium on new apartment construction that’s been in place for seven years, zoning rules have been changed to limit building height and density, and development impact fees were increased dramatically.

In 2018, the year before the permit caps began, the town saw 1,407 new dwelling units — houses, apartments, townhouses and other types of residences. Last year, there were 759.

Graphic: New residential units in Mount Pleasant

Building permit limits that began in early 2019 slowed residential development in Mount Pleasant. The town plans to extend those limits to 2029. NOTE: 2023 data As of novEMBER

The Post and Courier | sOURCE: TOWN OF MOUNT PLEASANT | THE POST AND COURIER

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Graphic: New residential units in Mount Pleasant

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The permit limits were aimed at slowing the town’s annual growth rate for residences from more than 3 percent to a target of 2.1 percent. The result was a growth rate even lower, marked by a low of 1.29 percent in 2020 when just 520 new residences were built.

Real Estate

Mount Pleasant’s ordinance in 2019 laid out justifications for limiting building permits, and nearly five years later those have not changed.

The ordinance to extend the permit limits uses the same language, which says “the effects of significant growth are apparent and have resulted not only in increased traffic, congestion and noise, but have also burdened the services..” and ”...the town’s road system is barely capable of adequately handling current traffic...”

The permit rules are particularly strict when it comes to higher density multi-family construction, such as apartments and condos. Just 500 new multi-family residences would be allowed over five years, while 2,400 single-family homes could be permitted.

Perhaps surprisingly, despite the limits in place since 2019, hundreds of single-family-home permits went unclaimed.

“Right now we have in excess of 800-900 single-family permits,” said Michele Reed, the town’s planning director.

Real estate professionals said a lack of developable land in Mount Pleasant and the high cost of any land available help explain why hundreds of permits to build houses were not used.

“Mount Pleasant, in a lot of ways, is near build-out,” said Josh Dix, government affairs director for the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors. “There’s not a lot of opportunity for single-family.”

Real Estate

If the town were to annex more properties, that could change. The town is currently in a lawsuit over rules that require property owners to become part of the town in order to get the water and sewer service needed for development.

The suit was filed by owners of a 185-acre tract on the Wando River, known as the Republic tract.

If it were to be developed in the town, Mount Pleasant’s impact fees would apply and permit limits would allow just 25 new homes per developer every six months. If it could be developed as an unincorporated part of Charleston County, town officials have said the county’s zoning would allow about 1,600 homes.

So, Mount Pleasant is mostly built-out, but that could change.

In the current permit-limiting plan that started in 2019, all but 10 of the 500 multi-family permits were claimed, as were all 100 of the permits allowed for accessory dwellings — generally small second homes on the same property as a primary home.

Mount Pleasant News

Unclaimed permits will not roll over into the next proposed 5-year program. And as with the current program, there would be limits on how many single-family permits could be obtained every six months.

Drew Grossklauss, a Mount Pleasant realtor who became president of the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors in November, said he understands the town needs to address growth but the length of the permit limit extension seems unnecessary.

“I would say five years seems like an extreme to do something,” he said.

There are exceptions to the permit caps. The two developments that have ongoing agreements with the town, Carolina Park and Liberty Hill Farm, are exempt, as are developments of affordable housing.

Real Estate

During the last five years, there was one townhouse development, Gregorie Ferry Towns, that qualified for the affordable housing exception — townhomes started at $279,000 — but real estate professionals doubt private developers could create more.

“The cost of land, the cost of construction — all these things add up,” said Dix. He said allowing more permits for multi-family housing could help create more affordable housing.

“There is a lot of talk from realtors that if we build a lot of multi-family housing, Mount Pleasant would be more affordable, but I think that’s not true,” said Whitley. “They will charge what the market will bear.”

MOUNT PLEASANT — An overpass on U.S. Highway 17, improvements to flood-prone Long Point Road and $158 million for the town’s planned network of bike and pedestrian paths could be included in a planned sales tax referendum.

Or not.

With weeks remaining for public comment, Charleston County has been holding drop-in meetings in different areas to get feedback and build support for a 25-year extension of an extra sales tax that’s crucial to funding the Mark Clark Extension across Johns and James islands.

Potential road plans have been listed in each part of the county, but together they would cost far more than the half-percent sales tax would raise for new projects other than the Mark Clark.

The $5.4 billion the tax is aimed at raising includes nearly $812 million for “potential projects” other than the Mark Clark. But the price tag on all such projects outlined in public meetings adds up to more than $1.83 billion, so many would not make it to the final list.

“Only a portion of the potential projects presented will be funded,” the county said in a footnote to the project lists.

At a lightly attended open house at Moultrie Middle School on Feb. 12, county staff and public officials outnumbered visitors for most of the two-hour event. Town councilman and former Charleston Transportation Director Howard Chapman was there and said extending the half-percent sales tax could help Mount Pleasant.

“The No. 1 problem in Mount Pleasant according to our citizens is traffic,” he said. “We’re doing something about it with the money we have, but we don’t have enough.”

The county doesn’t have enough money for the long-debated Mark Clark Extension, which would continue Interstate 526 from West Ashley across Johns Island to James Island. Extending the half-percent sales tax is the solution the county presented to the state in 2023. If voters approve the tax this November, more than one-third of tax money would go to the Mark Clark.

Alan Freeman and Jeff Yurfest of The Shopping Center Group represented the buyer, Edens, in the sale of 104,000 square feet and 8.8 acres of retail space at Moultire Plaza on Coleman Boulevard and Simmons Street in Mount Pleasant.

GMB LLC sold the property for $28.5 million. Tim Wood and Woody Kapp of Meyer Kapp and Associates represented the seller.

Other commercial real estate transactions in the Charleston area include:

Jing “Julia” Donovan of Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic represented the tenant, Manqing Ye, in the lease of retail space at 1039 Johnnie Dodds Blvd. in Mount Pleasant. Mark J. Tezza of Kennerty, Ratner, Tessa LLC represented the landlord, Caro-Cal Associates LLC.

Hannah Kamba and Brent Case of Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic represented the tenant, Dulce Inc., in the lease of 2,404 square feet of retail space at One Nexton Blvd. in Summerville from The Shopping Center Group. Jeff Yurfest represented the landlord.

Robert Pratt of Re/Max Pro Realty represented the landlord, 113 N. Magnolia LLC, in the lease of 1,366 square feet of retail space at 113 N. Magnolia St., Suite A, in Summerville to Sip of the South LLC. Roy Oglesby of Carolina One Real Estate represented the tenant.

NAI Charleston veteran broker Will Sherrod recently facilitated the sale of a 23,755-square-foot former bank branch and additional office space on 3.7 acres of land at 201 N. Spence Ave. in Goldsboro, N.C. The property is located approximately one mile from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and sits near N. Berkeley Boulevard, which is the main retail corridor serving the Goldsboro market.

Jenna Philipp of Palmetto Commercial Properties LLC represented the landlord, James Island Business Park LLC, in the lease of 15,315 square feet of industrial space at 1750 Signal Point Road to Jenna Mobile Philipp.

Caroline Boyce of Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic represented the tenant, Sweet Moon Bakery, in the lease of 1,200 square feet of retail space in Unit 12 at 5131 Dorchester Road in North Charleston. Vitre Ravenel Stephens and Taylor Sekanovich of Harbor Commercial Partners represented the landlord.

Hannah Kamba and Brent Case of Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic represented the tenant, Blue Clements Ferry Inc., in the lease of 4,000 square feet of retail space at 834 Foundation St. in Charleston. Fritz Meyer and Eric Meyer of Meyer Kapp & Associates LLC represented the landlord.

Hannah Kamba and Brent Case of Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic represented the tenant, Catrinas Nexton Inc., in the lease of 4,567 square feet of retail space at One Nexton Blvd. in Summerville. Jeff Yurfest of The Shopping Center Group represented the landlord.

Todd Garrett, Tradd Varner and Crawford Riddle of Harbor Commercial Partners represented the buyer, 2514 Oscar Johnson Road LLC, in the sale of 4,968 square feet industrial space at 2514 Oscar Johnson Road in North Charleston from the estate of Johnathan Uram for $785,000. Robin Pye of Carolina One Real Estate represented the seller.

Vitré Ravenel Stephens and Taylor Sekanovich of Harbor Commercial Partners represented the landlord, Fifty-Two Associates, in the lease of 2,750 square feet of retail space at 8410 Rivers Ave., Suites B and C, North Charleston, to Mulligan's.

Mark Erickson and Jarred Watts of Colliers represented Geopolymer International LLC in the leasing of 4,000 square feet of industrial space at 200 Varnfield Drive in Summerville.

Hot Properties highlights recently sold or leased commercial properties in the Charleston region. Send in your transactions using our online form.

MOUNT PLEASANT, S.C. (WCIV) — Saving Hamlin.

That's the message from people living in the Hamlin Beach Community who showed up at Mount Pleasant Town Hall Wednesday night. The town’s planning commission voted to recommend the town council deny a rezoning request that would allow for new development.

Multiple people dressed in red brought up their concerns with this possible rezoning to the planning commission.

“We are wearing this red because this is the blood, sweat, and tears that our ancestors have shed to get this land, keep this land,” said Myra Richardson. “And we are also still shedding blood, sweat, and tears to preserve, protect, and keep it for our children, and our great-grandchildren and everybody to come.”

Richardson told News 4 that a move like this would devastate Hamlin.

Read more: "Mount Pleasant native transfers to Tigertown, Graduates from Titletown."

Hamlin Beach is one of Charleston County’s many settlement communities seeking protection for its land, but people say it’s more than just that. They say it’s preserving the roots of the Gullah Geechee culture spanning for decades.

“I’m 51 years old, and I still live on the land, and I can trace my history back to my great-great-grandfather who was a slave living on that land,” said Cassandra Davis.

Land that could be rezoned, giving developers the green light to build new homes.

Read more: "Bailem family protests against alleged unauthorized conversion of John Ballam Road."

Mount Pleasant’s planning commission unanimously decided to recommend denying the zoning request. That recommendation will go to the town council and a final vote will be in its members’ hands.

People living in Hamlin hope the council will also choose to protect their homes.

“Once they come in, one little project at a time, it'll be something that overflows, and it'll be uncontrollable. If you allow one person to do it, then you're not going to be able to deny the next applicant that comes through,” Richardson said.

Richardson said she also worries about development causing traffic and flooding issues. She thinks the rezoning request was extremely vague and fears it would give developers too much power.

Read more: "Mount Pleasant family responds to Charleston County's attempt to dismiss their lawsuit against them."

“You don't know what they want, you don't know what they were planning.”

The planning commission said it’s learning it must shift its focus to protecting the area’s neighborhoods; something the people of Hamlin are grateful for.

“They have just really come together with one sound, one voice to make sure that communities like the Hamlin Beach Community is protected,” Davis said.

The planning commission also mentioned Hamlin Beach is working to get its historic designation, and they wouldn’t want something like a new development to hinder that process.