A $300 million proposal that combines the former Piggly Wiggly and neighboring Ashley Landing shopping center was presented by the developer, Edens, and the city Aug. 26, 2024 at a community meeting about a mile from the site. Ali Rockett/staff.
Redevelopment plans for a long-disputed plot once home to Piggly Wiggly could go before the Charleston City Council as early as next month after receiving a warm reception at an Aug. 26 community meeting in West Ashley.
The proposal combines the 3-acre parcel the city owns wedged in by Sam Rittenberg Boulevard and Old Towne Road, but also the much larger Ashley Landing shopping center across from Sumar Street.
The development plan pitched at the meeting calls for more than 6 acres of green space across the entire 35-acre project, a four- to five-story apartment complex with 325 units, 100 town homes and 230,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, which is less retail than there is currently.
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All told, the redevelopment effort would cost taxpayers about $45 million, with another $300 million pitched in from the private developer.
Mayor William Cogswell said he worked closely on the pitch with potential developer Edens, a Columbia-based company that has grown nationally with properties in Mount Pleasant, Kiawah, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and California. However, the developer does not yet own either site.
Before he took office in January, Cogswell was a developer behind projects like the Cigar Factory, a mixed-used redevelopment on East Bay Street, and pushed for a unified redevelopment plan combining the two sites during his campaign.
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"This has been a controversial project for six or seven years. I think it's time for the community to come together and get behind something," Cogswell said to applause from the crowd of about 300 people.
The reaction appeared to catch Cogswell off guard. He earlier jested that he expected a few pitchforks amongst the throng, an indication of the backlash from prior proposals that have the left city-owned paved lot barren and blighted since it was purchased it in 2017.
"It may not be perfect," Cogswell started to say as the ovation swelled. "Maybe it is perfect. Let me stop there."
New plan, new vision
The Aug. 26 meeting was the first time the public was able to lay eyes on and hear details of this latest proposal. If the plan ultimately proves unpopular, Cogswell said the alternative is leaving the site as is. If that happens, the city will likely look to sell its parcel.
While feedback from attendees seemed favorable, most expressed a desire to see any development along the neglected corridor.
"I'm glad their moving forward with something," said Maureen Huff Millhouse, who has lived the nearby Sandhurst neighborhood for 45 years. "We need a town center in this end of West Ashley."
Edens, the project's proposed developer, recently purchased Freshfields Village on Kiawah Island saying that it matched their company "ethos." The shopping center has over 70 shops, restaurants and a boutique hotel, and centers around a village green for community events like music concerts, art exhibits and food festivals.
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Plans call for a similar communal space that would be twice the size of the Freshfields lawn. The company said it hopes to host between 150 and 180 events there annually. The notion brought concerns from attendees about noise, parking and added traffic along two major thoroughfares that already comes to a standstill during rush hour.
Cogswell acknowledged traffic calming measures are needed, referring to the point, where Sam Rittenberg Boulevard and Old Towne Road split, as the "suicide merge." But those still need to be ironed out with the city, Charleston County and S.C. Department of Transportation.
Another key piece of the proposal is stormwater retention and flood mitigation. Herbert Ames, Edens' managing director, said the current site has "zero retention whatsoever" which results in runoff draining into "public right-of-ways, streets and probably most of your neighborhoods."
If approved, the plan will capture about nine acres of water underground and release it slowly back into the natural system. Ames called it "a huge improvement over a site that is nothing but asphalt."
A past of failed proposals
One woman said there appeared to be plenty of public support, but questioned whether there was the political will to make the project happen. At least nine of the city's 13 council members attended the public meeting that was held about a mile from the development site.
Past proposals grounded to a halt as council failed to come to a consensus last year about what to do with the property.
The city bought the parcel in 2017 for $3 million from Faison, another developer that still owns the Ashley Landing shopping center, following backlash from the community over plans to build a gas station there. In 2018, the city demolished the 33,756-square-foot supermarket that had sat vacant there for six years.
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The city then turned to Landmark Enterprises, a local real estate company that was contracted to draft plans for the 3-acre lot.
The original design included a $45 million investment from the city, nearly half of which was earmarked for an underground parking garage. Landmark was expected to contribute another $30 million for mixed-use commercial space for offices, shops and restaurants. Other iterations shrank the amount of parking, and with it the city's total investment. None gained enough support to pass.
At Monday's meeting, Cogswell said the original plan was "pretty good ... for a three-acre triangle," but said its overall impact would be minimal in an area where the city hoped its investment would spur others to invest.
Cogswell said he aimed to keep the city's commitment around $45 million, but needed to find a developer with the purse strings to make the broader vision happen, which he estimated would take about $300 million. After Faison agreed to vet other potential developers to sell their property to, they landed on Edens with input from the city.
However, Landmark appears to have been left out of the discussion. If the city were to break its contract with Landmark, it would cost taxpayers some $600,000.
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"I think that there is a political will, and I think that there's a real understanding too about the urgency and the need to really expedite this," Cogswell said.
The corridor is under a special tax district, like the tax increment financing, or TIF, the city just approved for Union Pier. A TIF essentially allows municipalities to borrow and bond against future tax revenue earned on improvements to blighted properties to reinvest back into that district. The West Ashley TIF was created eight years ago, and still hasn't accrued any revenue because no improvements have been made, Cogswell told the crowd.
The longer the city waits to approve plans to develop the site, the less money it will have to invest in the public infrastructure on the site, including parks, sidewalks and flood mitigation.