Hardwood Flooring in James Island, SC

Published: Dec. 17, 2024 at 7:45 PM PST|

JOHNS ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - Construction of a multi-million-dollar fire station on Johns Island that has been talked about for years is officially moving forward.

This project took a significant step after the City of Charleston approved a construction manager at risk, or CMAR, contract during Tuesday night’s council meeting.

A CMAR is when a construction manager agrees to take on a project and complete it within a set guaranteed maximum price, or GMP, and if construction services end up exceeding the GMP that was agreed upon, the construction manager is responsible for those costs.

The set GMP that City officials approved for the CMAR contract Tuesday night is $12.4 million.

Fire Station number 23 is planned to sit on Maybank Highway at Wildts Battery Boulevard. Plans call for it to include a training room, three bays and two units: an engine company and a ladder company. Officials say there would be four personnel working on each unit.

“To have enough apparatus and units to respond when we need it, so this will provide for growth as we go forward as well as we continue to plan for future growth beyond this,” Deputy Chief Forrest Cockcroft says. “But right now this will give us another engine and a ladder to really beef up that initial first response that we get on most of our fires, especially on our commercial fires.”

The Charleston Fire Department only has one station on Johns Island, which is Fire Station 17 located on Bohicket Road.

Cockcroft says that they currently have coverage of all of Johns Island between the Charleston Fire Department and St. Johns Fire Department, but they are looking ahead to meet the demand as the population grows by adding this new fire station.

“One of the things we try to look to is to make sure that we have the appropriate amount of personnel on scene for a structure fire or different type of call types, so we have some benchmarks that we try to meet with that and this will allow us to meet those benchmarks much more quickly because we’ve got much more density of stations going in and additional firefighters on the road,” Cockcroft says.

City of Charleston council member, Jim McBride, who represents Johns Island says that this new fire station will also help out other stations in the surrounding areas.

“Sometimes fire stations from James Island and West Ashley have to come augment us if there is a big fire, so getting this station on there on Maybank will actually free them up to focus more on their areas, so it impacts not just Johns Island, but also James Island and West Ashley,” McBride says.

McBride says that the City of Charleston Fire Chief, Dan Curia, has been working ahead and training two fire teams that will occupy the new fire station once it is built.

He says that they expect shovels in the ground for this project in early 2025 with it expected to be finished by the end of the year.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

JAMES ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - The City of Charleston is looking at the application of a potential new development off Folly Road that would include a mini golf course and a new retail center.

In addition to the mini golf course, this potential new mixed-use development would include a food court, a coffee shop, a wellness facility and a bar. There are also plans for over 120 parking spaces to accommodate patrons, according to the developer.

If approved, the development, which has been named the “Community Corner,” would take up 2.9 acres of land on Grimball Road Extension.

This project is still very early in the approval process and would require several other steps and approvals from the City to move forward.

Though nothing is finalized, this potential project has garnered quite a bit of attention on social media with residents sharing mixed feelings. Some shared concerns about an increase of traffic and the construction harming wetlands, while others say they are excited about the idea and feel the area needs more recreational activities.

Chad Biel is the owner of Bohemian Bull, a restaurant that is just half a mile from the location of the tentative development. Biel shared his thoughts on the proposed “Community Corner” project.

“I would say I see two sides of this,” he says. “It’s inevitable that the city’s going to grow. I think that there needs to be some better city planning. We have a lot of flooding on this street and a ton of traffic on this street. So, I would ask that, you know, that gets thought of when they’re doing these plans, but then, as a resident that’s kind of the piece of the pie, right? I have kids. So, they’re going to enjoy the mini golf but then we also will deal with all the traffic that comes along with that as more and more people come down this way in a relatively small highway that runs through here.”

Biel says he likes the idea of more activity options coming to the area and believes it could help foot traffic for his business, but he calls on city officials to consider some of the flooding issues and road traffic in the area. If that is addressed, he says he welcomes the idea.

“As a business owner, I think it’ll be a positive impact. I mean, every single time that we see other businesses opening up in the area, we always see a positive impact from it and we’ve had sales growth year over year, and that’s because the area is continuing to grow, we are continuing to get more people that move to James Island, we are getting more businesses on James Island,” he says.

The developer of this tentative project says that they plan to create a world class space that does not exist anywhere in Charleston.

While there is no form for public comment on this project, the city’s Technical Review Committee Administrator, Eric Schultz, welcomes questions about any of the items up for discussion by the committee. Schultz can be reached at 843-724-3790 or schultze@charleston-sc.gov.

The committee will meet Thursday at 9 a.m. to discuss this application.

This item is scheduled in the agenda to be heard at 11:30 a.m.

Click here for the Zoom link to join the meeting.

To call into the meeting, dial 1-312-626-6799, then type in Webinar ID# 832-2640-6779, followed by the password, 721363.

Guests are encouraged to join the meeting 20 minutes before the agenda item is scheduled to be discussed. The “Community Corner” is up for discussion at 11:30 a.m.

Copyright 2025 WCSC. All rights reserved.

Updated: Jan. 9, 2025 at 5:07 PM PST

JAMES ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - After a budget setback in 2024 delayed the project, the Charleton County Finance Committee is expected to award a contract for work to build sidewalks and a crosswalk at Woodland Shores Road and Maybank Highway on James Island.

People living in the area say they have been petitioning leaders for pedestrian improvements for years. Adam Friend founded a neighborhood association that focuses on improvement projects and recently, the group celebrated adding speed humps to Woodland Shores Road.

The ‘Complete Streets’ project plans to put that 8-foot sidewalk along Woodland Shores Drive, onto Maybank Highway to Stefan Drive, and add a midblock crossing of Maybank near Stefan Drive at Terrace Plaza. The work will include a median, pavement marking and drainage as well.

“For it to be 2025 and we’re finally seeing that a bid is being endorsed and going to be signed off on tonight with Gulf Stream is surreal, I guess would be the best word. I’m excited yes, but I’m going to hold out until I see they’re actually breaking ground before I believe this is really happening, but it looks certainly to be coming to fruition which should really help the safety of a lot of us who live on Woodland Shores Road,” Friend says.

County Council is expected to award a more than $3.6 million contract with Gulf Stream construction. Woodland Shores Road catapulted into the public eye after a 2023 hit and run that left Jen Drummond seriously injured. Her neighbors renewed a push for sidewalks, something they say they had wanted for some time. Their efforts have also achieved adding speed bumps since the incident.

“We’d hoped we could have avoided something tragic prior to having this come to fruition, but we fought really hard as a neighborhood. I started this Woodland Shores commission and I think it’s been a really strong grassroots mission, of people just refusing to take no,” Friend says.

Funding is both federal and local for the multi-million dollar project. There is not a set construction start date, but the work is expected to have at least a nine-month timeline once shovels are in the ground. Friend says it’s not perfect since it’s only one side of the road, and the opposite side of their mailboxes for some, but he thanks the local and state leaders who worked on achieving it.

“People have become very ‘Doubting Thomases’ I guess and don’t think it’s really going to happen, so I think we will all be really happy when we see the work in progress,” Friend says.

Copyright 2025 WCSC. All rights reserved.