Groove to the Music with Dance Classes Near Wando, SC

Thirteen athletes from across eight sports signed their letters of intent to play at the collegiate level at a signing day ceremony at Wando High School on April 26.

The Class of 2023 students will be attending universities in and outside of South Carolina. Six athletes signed to Division I schools.

“There certainly has been a lot of hard work by these young student athletes,” said Wando Athletic Director Mark Buchman. “This is certainly a very exciting time. To have an opportunity to move to the next level, not many athletes get that chance.”

With the click of a pen and the situating of a branded cap on the head, the student athletes committed to their schools. Several of those athletes earned a double shout-out from the coaches who took turns at the podium highlighting their players. A handful of the athletes found the time to excel in not just one, but two sports during their high school careers.

“We’re talking about kids that go 365, 24/7 and that’s really rare to find these days,” said Wando Volleyball Coach Alexis Glover.

Girls basketball forward Taylor Brown signed with Division III school the University of Lynchburg.

Boys cross country runners Brendan Gomez and Tanner Jelliff signed with the University of Tennessee and Charleston Southern University, respectively. Both are Division I schools. Gomez and Jelliff also run on Wando’s track and field team.

Two more track and field runners signed with Division I schools. Hannah Togami is heading to the University of South Carolina and Jack Scott to the Citadel. Scott also played as a defensive back on the football team.

Running back AJ Gathers signed to play football for Brevard College in North Carolina. Gathers served as a team captain in his senior year.

For volleyball, setter Reece Campbell is heading to Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Opposite hitter Emma Sanders signed with Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, Massachusetts. Togami also played on the volleyball team as an outside hitter.

Wrestler Pierce Carpenter-Kydd will be joining Scott among the ranks of the Citadel cadets, though he signed with the Bulldogs wrestling team. Fellow wrestler Jacob Pelbath signed with Liberty University.

Boys soccer player Johnathan Coleman signed to Division II school Anderson University. His teammate Stokes McConnell signed with The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Girls soccer midfielder Lennon Leithauser signed with The City College of New York.

“We, as an athletic partner, are extremely proud of you and I’m sure your parents, all the supporters that are in the crowd, your friends, family members are super proud,” said girls soccer coach Shannon Champ.

HUGER S.C. (WCSC) - People that live in the Huger-Wando community are voicing their concerns to city leaders about everything from transportation to affordable housing.

Almost 200 people came to a community meeting at Cainhoy Elementary on Thursday. They say they feel overlooked when it comes to decisions regarding their area.

Carl Anderson, S.C. House of Representatives District 103, says he is new to representing the Huger-Wando area and wants their requests to be fulfilled.

“Berkeley County has several pots of money that we just hope would be shared across Berkeley County with every area of Berkeley County, but this area, as they said to me, they feel like they have been overlooked,” Anderson said. “So, I feel like this area needs a little bit more attention than the other areas.”

At the meeting, representatives from Berkeley County, the state’s health department and department of transportation, just to name a few, answered questions from the public.

“The funds that have come in from the federal government during this pandemic and what is going to be done with it,” Anderson said. “And we heard that only a fraction of those funds were spent. So, they want to be included in the funds that the county has so that things can get done in this area.”

Another issue brought up was the repaving of certain roads, the cost of affordable housing and overall severity of sewage and drainage problems.

One community member, Cynthia Lawrence, says she wished that the agencies could have gone into more detail with their answers.

“Well, I think the public is still a little leery about the answers that they received tonight from the agencies that were here,” Lawrence said. “We needed to go a little deeper and it just wasn’t enough time.”

Although the community members say they wish they had more time, other county and school representatives say they can answer more in-depth questions when contacted directly.

The hope is to have another meeting sometime in October, but no date has been set as of now. The organizer’s plans include inviting Berkeley County Water and Sewer so they can solve more of the sewage issues.

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With Lucy Beckham High School set to open in Mount Pleasant in the fall of 2020, parents are running out of time to voice their opinions about some tough attendance map decisions.

The District 2 Constituent School Board, an elected body serving Mount Pleasant public schools, is planning one more parent input session at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Moultrie Middle cafeteria. As early as June, the board is expected to vote for a new attendance map that defines which neighborhoods are zoned for Beckham and which will stay at the massive Wando High.

With 12 possible attendance maps up for consideration, only one thing is certain: The rezoning will break up the largest high school in the state.

Wando was built for 3,445 students but now has an enrollment of about 4,000, forcing some classrooms into trailers on the northern Mount Pleasant campus.

Beckham, which is under construction on Mathis Ferry Road in southern Mount Pleasant, is situated closer to the center of dense residential development but will contain far fewer students. The $103.7 million, three-story building will only have 1,500 seats available when it opens.

The size imbalance of the two schools is creating some logistical headaches.

One common complaint of parents has been they want their children to go to the school closest to home. But according to Sarah Shad Johnson, chairwoman of the constituent board, that won’t be possible in some cases.

“While a whole lot of people live closer to Beckham than Wando, it would be impossible to zone everyone who lives closest to a high school to go to it. That’s probably the most difficult part,” Johnson said.

The constituent board had pressed the Charleston County School District to build Beckham with a capacity of 2,000. After initially announcing plans to build with a capacity of 1,200, the district school board revised its plans and approved a building project for 1,500 students in August 2016.

Some students who have attended class with their neighbors since kindergarten may have to split up when they get to high school. For example, students living on Sullivan’s Island and Isle of Palms all currently attend Sullivan’s Island Elementary and Moultrie Middle together. But some of the proposed maps involve splitting the islands up to attend different high schools.

“That’s another area of contention. The island kids have always been together,” said Constituent Board Vice Chairwoman Marty Belk.

Despite the wide disparity in sizes, Wando and Beckham may both be too large to optimally serve students, according to some researchers.

While most high school students in America attend high schools with enrollment of 1,000 or higher, one widely cited 2007 University of Michigan study found that the ideal high school size is between 600 and 900 students.

The U.S. Department of Education concurred, writing on its website in 2009 that high schools with 900 or fewer students “likely improve the climate and conditions for student success, especially teacher sense of self-efficacy and appropriate sense of responsibility for student learning, when accompanied by high expectations, standards and supporting strategies.”

The District 2 constituent school board has 12 proposed maps listed on its website. Although a parent input meeting Wednesday night focused on just two options, B-1 and C-2, Belk and Johnson both stressed that all 12 options are still on the table.

The board could make a school zoning decision as early as June and as late as the fall of 2019, according to Johnson.

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Site work is set to begin after the Fourth of July weekend on a new housing development slated for a piece of the city of Charleston in Berkeley County.

Gulf Stream Development of Charleston will begin moving earth and preparing to install underground utilities and roads for a 68-acre site called Wando Village on S.C. Highway 41 at Tuxbury Farm Road.

A division of Pulte Home Co. of North Charleston is developing the site just across the Wando River from Mount Pleasant.

The number of homes slated for the development was not immediately available, but at one point in 2014 about 420 units were planned for the site.

The property sits in the city of Charleston and is owned by an affiliate of The Beach Co., according to Berkeley County land records. The developer bought the property in 2007 for $14.9 million.

The Ingraham-Forrest House at 10 King St. in Charleston recently changed hands. It is believed to have been built when George Washington was president.

Charleston is better-positioned in the commercial real estate sector than much larger U.S. markets to stave off economic distress that could result from higher borrowing costs and the unsettled office sector after the pandemic.

That’s the assessment of industry experts who specialize in office, industrial and retail properties.

“There are more tailwinds than headwinds (for Charleston),” said Manus Clancy, senior managing director at Trepp, a New York City-based financial information service for the commercial real estate industry.

“Charleston is strong across all property types,” he said. “You are punching above your weight when it comes to the metrics.”

Clancy noted “a dramatic difference in geography” across the nation for areas affected by the fallout of the shift toward the hybrid model of in-person and remote office work policies.

Large cities, such as San Francisco, Baltimore and Seattle, where the quality-of-life quotient is offset by long commutes, are not faring well after the global health crisis.

“This puts cities like Charleston, Greenville, Austin and Salt Lake City in the driver’s seat to attract more industries,” Clancy said.

He pointed out housing costs are higher in Charleston than most of the rest of South Carolina, but compared to many large metro areas it’s more affordable and the quality of life is attractive in the Lowcountry.

He also noted the area’s labor force is strong and increasingly better educated.

“People want to flock to places where their students can be educated,” Clancy said. “In Charleston, you have the ability to make that case.”

Clancy added the financial industry has not fully recovered from the spring scare instigated by several high-profile bank failures, and credit, especially for the office sector, is going to be harder to come by.

Still, he noted borrowing continues in the commercial real estate market, but at roughly half the pace as last year.

Cubicle command

The office market is showing the most stress, with delinquencies of commercial mortgage-backed securities more than doubling from less than 2 percent in December to about 5.5 percent nine months later.

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In the Charleston area, vacancy rates for office space average just under 12 percent, based on composite local market reports for the July-September period from the commercial real estate firms of Avison Young, Colliers and Lee & Associates.

The latter firm said it sees an uptick in office occupancy in 2024 as more employers require staffers to show up in person more often. Avison Young echoed the move next year to the hybrid arrangement.

Colliers cited the updated working environments and ease of access as the drivers of the office market, and the firm projected a flattening of vacancies by the first quarter of next year.

Lee Allen, executive managing director for commercial real estate firm JLL in Charleston, said the local office sector never got overbuilt and the risk is lower for newer, more creative offerings.

“What we have seen in the market is a flight to quality,” Allen said.

Business and other employers that are set on bringing workers back to the office two to three days a week want to elevate their experience with a top-notch working environment to keep top talent from jumping ship.

Homebuilder PulteGroup has expanded its footprint in southern Berkeley County with the purchase of a 40-acre site on Tuxbury Farm Road off of S.C. Highway 41 for $5 million.

The Atlanta-based company purchased the parcel that borders Wando Village, its 68-acre housing development that is just across the Wando River from Mount Pleasant. The sale closed July 26.

“The new parcel is a continuation of Wando Village,” said Jennifer Pencarinha, marketing manager for PulteGroup. “We hope to have a model set up later this year.”

Pencarinha said Wando Village will have 116 home sites when completed. At one point in 2014, about 420 units were planned for the site.

The recently sold property is in the city of Charleston and was owned previously by an affiliate of The Beach Co., according to Berkeley County land records.

Wando Village amenities will include community dock, pavilion, fire pit, nautical playground and pocket parks.

It’s among a growing number of residential developments in the Cainhoy and Huger area, mostly along Highway 41 and Clements Ferry Road.

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Charleston Landmark Builders is almost ready to break ground on The Lakes at Winyah, which is slated to have 24 homesites when finished. D.R. Horton has 240 homes planned for its French Quarter Creek neighborhood, which is three miles from Wando Village up Highway 41.

PulteGroup is also pursuing plans to build a new Del Webb neighborhood with nearly 1,100 homes aimed at the 55-plus market at Clements Ferry and Cainhoy roads. If approved, it would be the company’s third such development in the region.

The proposed neighborhood sits on a 585-acre parcel along Beech Hill Drive and is part of the 9,000-acre Cainhoy Plantation tract that straddles Clements Ferry. The site slated for the new housing development is between Jack Primus and Cainhoy roads on the northern side of Clements Ferry.

The national forest sits across Cainhoy Road from the tract.

The city of Charleston annexed the wooded plantation — owned for decades by the Guggenheim family — nearly 30 years ago. More than 9,000 homes are planned in Cainhoy Plantation with some already on the ground in the Point Hope development, where apartments, businesses and schools have sprung up.

Charleston is better-positioned in the commercial real estate sector than much larger U.S. markets to stave off economic distress that could result from higher borrowing costs and the unsettled office sector after the pandemic.

That’s the assessment of industry experts who specialize in office, industrial and retail properties.

“There are more tailwinds than headwinds (for Charleston),” said Manus Clancy, senior managing director at Trepp, a New York City-based financial information service for the commercial real estate industry.

“Charleston is strong across all property types,” he said. “You are punching above your weight when it comes to the metrics.”

Clancy noted “a dramatic difference in geography” across the nation for areas affected by the fallout of the shift toward the hybrid model of in-person and remote office work policies.

Large cities, such as San Francisco, Baltimore and Seattle, where the quality-of-life quotient is offset by long commutes, are not faring well after the global health crisis.

“This puts cities like Charleston, Greenville, Austin and Salt Lake City in the driver’s seat to attract more industries,” Clancy said.

He pointed out housing costs are higher in Charleston than most of the rest of South Carolina, but compared to many large metro areas it’s more affordable and the quality of life is attractive in the Lowcountry.

He also noted the area’s labor force is strong and increasingly better educated.

“People want to flock to places where their students can be educated,” Clancy said. “In Charleston, you have the ability to make that case.”

Clancy added the financial industry has not fully recovered from the spring scare instigated by several high-profile bank failures, and credit, especially for the office sector, is going to be harder to come by.

Still, he noted borrowing continues in the commercial real estate market, but at roughly half the pace as last year.

Cubicle command

The office market is showing the most stress, with delinquencies of commercial mortgage-backed securities more than doubling from less than 2 percent in December to about 5.5 percent nine months later.

Get the best of the Post and Courier’s Real Estate news, handpicked and delivered to your inbox each Saturday.

Email

In the Charleston area, vacancy rates for office space average just under 12 percent, based on composite local market reports for the July-September period from the commercial real estate firms of Avison Young, Colliers and Lee & Associates.

The latter firm said it sees an uptick in office occupancy in 2024 as more employers require staffers to show up in person more often. Avison Young echoed the move next year to the hybrid arrangement.

Colliers cited the updated working environments and ease of access as the drivers of the office market, and the firm projected a flattening of vacancies by the first quarter of next year.

Lee Allen, executive managing director for commercial real estate firm JLL in Charleston, said the local office sector never got overbuilt and the risk is lower for newer, more creative offerings.

“What we have seen in the market is a flight to quality,” Allen said.

Business and other employers that are set on bringing workers back to the office two to three days a week want to elevate their experience with a top-notch working environment to keep top talent from jumping ship.