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Mixed-use Community Slated for Maybank Highway |
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Written by Dennis Quick, Senior Staff Writer, Charleston Regional Business Journal
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Jul 30, 2007 at 11:10 AM |
A 22.5-acre parcel near the Maybank Highway-Folly Road intersection on James Island could become the site of a miniature “downtown” that will feature upscale homes, high-end retail stores and class “A” office space.
That’s the vision J. Luzuriaga, president of Charleston-based real
estate firm J.L. Woode Ltd., has for the heavily wooded property.
Luzuriaga’s company last month purchased the property for $12.2 million from Murfreesboro, Tenn.-based National Healthcare Corp.
It will be another two to three months before Luzuriaga and his
associates decide what will be built on the property. Urban design firm
Keane Musty and architecture firm LS3P Associates Ltd. are working on
possible concepts. Construction most likely will begin during the first
quarter of next year, Luzuriaga said.
“The specific uses of the property are in flux because they’re
dependent on the market. There could be a heavy component of workplace
to go with retail and residential, and that more than likely will
happen,” said Tim Keane, president of Keane Musty.
“We’re just working out the market mix and then proceeding with the design,” Keane added.
Luzuriaga’s general vision of the property’s potential blends with the
city of Charleston’s concept of transforming the area surrounding the
Folly Road-Maybank Highway intersection into a pedestrian-friendly,
mixed-used development where people live, work and shop all within
walking distance or a bus ride, thus reducing automobile traffic, said
Christopher Morgan, planning division director for the city’s Planning
and Neighborhoods Department.
The nearby, nearly vacant shopping plaza Cross Creek Square on Folly
Road, which began its downhill slide a decade ago when supermarket and
anchor tenant Harris Teeter moved out, is also part of the city’s
overall plan for the area. Roper St. Francis Healthcare reportedly has
proposed building a surgical center on the site, and retail outlets are
a possibility, Morgan said.
Sidewalks bordered by storefronts, offices and restaurants; tree-shaded
streets; parks and other public places; a residential mix of
townhouses, apartments, condominiums and single-family detached houses;
and a community design in which cars are parked in the rear of
buildings is what the city has on the drawing board for that area, to
be dubbed McLeod Village, named for the adjacent McLeod Plantation, the
forthcoming home of the American College of the Building Arts, Morgan
said.
Part of that vision includes improving the Maybank Highway-Folly Road
intersection. The existing intersection does not allow left turns from
Folly to Maybank or right turns from Maybank to Folly. Those turns must
be made from a two-lane offshoot connecting the two thoroughfares. The
offshoot has no traffic signals. The city initially had considered
installing a roundabout but has since scrapped that idea. Just how the
intersection will be improved has yet to be decided, Morgan said.
Cross Creek Square, the neighboring James Island Shopping Center, the
J.L. Woode parcel and McLeod Plantation would be interconnected, Morgan
said.
Morgan estimates it will take 20 to 30 years to build out McLeod Village.
McLeod Village is one of the city’s 19 proposed “gathering places,”
mixed-used developments built at major intersections. Right now, city
planners are focusing their attention on several of those gathering
places in addition to McLeod Village, Morgan said.
Those gathering places include the Bees Ferry Road-Glenn McConnell
Parkway intersection in West Ashley, the Old Towne Road and Sam
Rittenberg Boulevard intersection in West Ashley and the Clements Ferry
Road-Interstate 526 intersection on the Cainhoy peninsula, Morgan said.
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