Roofer in St. George, SC

ST. GEORGE — The tiny town in northwest Dorchester County might be getting some new next-door neighbors, and more, in one residential influx than it has ever seen before.

If approved by the county, a "cluster" housing development proposed by the D.R. Horton, a national builder, would bring more than 330 new homes and a new zoning designation for roughly 300 rural acres near the "Town of Friendly People."

Business

While the development would land on Sugar Hill Road outside town limits, St. George would provide water to the development while Dorchester County Water and Sewer would provide sewer services, said Kiera Reinertsen, the county's planning director. The development would also add an estimated 100 students to Dorchester School District Four and draw on services and amenities from St. George’s Fire Station Nine, Davis-Bailey Park and the town’s library.

“We’ve never had this many houses come in at one time since I’ve been here,” said Mayor Kevin Hart, who has lived in the town for 35 years.

The 2.8-square-mile town is home to roughly 1,800 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Now the county seat, St. George was originally called George’s Station as a stop along the South Carolina Railroad, now Norfolk Southern. It was incorporated in 1875.

“We haven’t had a housing development like this in this area before. There’s no way we can stop them, but we have to make plans. We won’t know it works until we see how it goes,” Hart said. "... Some want to keep our small-town feeling. It’s a tough battle, and we knew it was coming. You can see the progress coming all way up Highway 78. Harleyville is having the same challenge as St. George.

SC Climate and Environment News

“We’ve got to hope and pray our best laid plans go well for our little town.”

Described as “America’s largest home builder” on its web site, with operations in 45 markets nationwide and 1 million homes constructed since its inception in 1978, D.R. Horton wants to change zoning for the property for the proposed development from agricultural residential, which allows one-acre home lots, to single family residential (R-1), which reduces lot sizes to a third of an acre.

The cluster concept proposed relies on meeting the greenspace requirement by using that of an old golf club adjacent to the property to be developed. Members of the county’s Planning, Development and Building (PDB) Committee reviewed the request for information only on Jan. 8.

In an R-1 zone, said Reinertsen, there is a requirement that 30 percent of developable acreage be conserved as open space and 20 to 25 percent of that is required to be usable open space.

“Cluster developments allow for smaller lot size but preserve greater areas of open space. I believe that the intent is that a lot of that golf course area or all of it will remain open space. I believe they are looking to develop 338 homes over the next 4 to 5 years,” Reinertsen explained during the committee meeting.

“The services are in place to support a development like this.”

Business

He didn’t disagree with the services available to the development, but PDB chairman and County Councilman David Chinnis took issue with two other factors in the cluster proposal. One point of contention Chinnis raised was the development’s cluster design, which he said not only depends on a housing community having accessible green space nearby, but also that the green space is developable.

“I see some open space that is created as open space because the development possibilities are nearly zero, because of the disconnect from the property. I need to know how they intend to connect it. If they’re getting credit for open space, I expect it to be something that is usable, not just something that is imaginary. Cluster ordinance benefits only really apply if it’s developable green space,” said Chinnis, explaining later to The Post and Courier that the spirit of the county’s cluster development ordinance was to create something similar to community pocket parks.

The benefit to homeowners is green space around their homes, he said, while the benefit to the developer is that it costs less to install utilities when homes are closer together.

D.R. Horton’s proposal still must clear several more bureaucratic hurdles, including a second review by the PDB with a vote, and three readings with votes by the full County Council.

The proposal is only conceptual at this stage, Reinertsen assured the PDB members. The planning department had not received a submittal at the time of the Jan. 8 meeting.

“They’ll have to show me green space access that a neighbor isn’t going to be able to build a fence across,” Chinnis said.

The second point of contention the PDB chairman made was about the lack of traffic-calming measures included in the proposal.

“There are zero traffic calming measures in here. There’s zero. ... There are no splitter islands, roundabouts or anything,” Chinnis said during the meeting.

He later emphasized the county has found that speed bumps don’t make effective traffic control measures in residential communities.

“There’s things they’ll have to incorporate into the design. They may have to drop a few home lots to make it all work,” Chinnis said. “Landowners may have property rights, but land developers have property responsibilities to the community where they are building.”

Rosenwald Schools helped educate Black students in segregated South. Could a national park follow?

ST. GEORGE, S.C. (WCSC/AP) - A part of history in St. George that was set to be bulldozed now has a bright future.

The Rosenwald School in St. George was a building many people may never have been aware of, but it was one of thousands across the south that educated black children during segregation. It opened in 1925 and closed in 1954, eventually falling into an extreme state of disrepair with a caving ceiling, deteriorating floors and chipped, peeling walls.

But a group of former students got together and came up with a plan to save their historic upper Dorchester County school. The newly renovated St. George Rosenwald School will officially become a museum and community center.

It was in schools like the Dorchester County site, and nearly 5,000 others built in the American South a century ago, that Black students largely ignored by whites in power gained an educational foundation through the generosity of a Jewish businessman who could soon be memorialized with a national park.

They are now called Rosenwald Schools in honor of Julius Rosenwald, a part-owner and eventual president of Sears, Roebuck and Co., who teamed up with African American educator and leader Booker T. Washington to create the program to share the expenses of schools for Black children with the community.

There was no public transportation for the school’s students so most had to walk to school except for the lucky few, like Ordie Brown, who caught a ride on a donated bus.

“My father was fortunate enough to buy an old school bus and by getting that bus, I was able to drive that bus from the St. Mark community, bringing children from there, here to this school,” Brown said.

Rosenwald School historian Andrew Feiler says every county in the state had at least one Rosenwald School. Some had up to five. With no public transportation, attempts were made to place the schools in central, accessible locations.

Rosenwald gave $1,500 to each school; the remainder of the cost of each school had to be split between the Black community and local governments. For the Black community, cash, land, material or labor could count as their contribution, Feiler said.

“The leaders of this program reached out to the Black communities of the south and they said, ‘If you would contribute to the schools, because we want you to be a full partner in your progress.’” Feiler said.

Ralph James attended first and second grade at the school and now serves as chairman of the group of seven responsible for restoring the school to repair a caved ceiling, decayed floor and chipped, peeling walls.

“It’s a center of hope. It’s a center of encouragement,” James said. “It inspired us in spite of the odds and challenges we faced.”

The 76-year-old retired municipal judge has made it his life’s goal to restore his old school.

“Education has always been the key to success. Julius Rosenwald gave us that key,” James said.

The six-classroom building will now serve as a museum, historic site, field trip venue and community gathering place for years to come. When visitors walk inside, they will see some of the original floors and some of the original student desks.

The building will feature memorabilia from the school including yearbooks, homemade band uniforms, major red uniforms, and pictures of graduating classes.

State Sen. John Mathews secured $65,000 in state funding while the group raised around $4 million for the project on their own.

“This community came together in a great way to make this project work,” U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn said. “This is the kind of thing that brings people together, and I’m so pleased that they are preserving this history.”

The St. George school was one of the larger ones with six classrooms and an auditorium. Most schools only had one or two classrooms. More than a third of America’s Black children in the first half of the 20th century were educated in a Rosenwald school.

Other Rosenwald schools have been converted into senior centers, town halls, special event venues or restaurants. Many remain recognizable by the careful plans Rosenwald approved. Tall windows oriented to the east and west assured an abundance of natural light and ventilation in rural areas where electricity often didn’t reach until after the Great Depression.

In St. George, the vision isn’t just restoring the school, but providing a sense of the thriving African American neighborhood surrounding it during segregation. Businesses including a grocery store, barber shop and pool hall benefitted the Black community.

Inside the restored school, two classrooms look almost as they did 70 years ago. Another classroom is a public meeting room. The auditorium has been turned into a multipurpose space and will have exhibits detailing the school’s history and hands-on science displays, James said.

“You can feel what it was like just like I did,” he said.

A grand opening is planned for September.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

The George Hotel has opened its doors to welcome guests. The design-forward waterfront property from Indigo Road Hospitality Group and Winyah Hospitality has 56 rooms and suites alongside a full-service restaurant, marina bar and private event spaces, making it the first of its kind on South Carolina’s Hammock Coast.

Georgetown, SC, is a common stopover for boaters traveling the eastern coast and The George offers prime marina access, allowing boaters the opportunity to enjoy the hotel’s amenities, while also providing a port for guests to enjoy excursions, such as fishing and sailing, in Winyah Bay. In addition to on-site activities and events, The George offers a variety of spaces that can be booked for semi-private and private events, including a meeting and event room, outdoor greenspace and bar, Eliza’s, and on-site restaurant, The Independent.

Housing 56 rooms, 42 of which are waterfront, the hotel has been curated by Jenny Keenan Design, which used a collection of vintage European furnishings and custom pieces. The lobby sports two-toned hardwoods and lime-washed plank walls, patterned sofas, wing-backed chairs and "oriental" rugs. The corridor of the first floor displays a large painting of a mermaid and alligator by artist David Boatwright of Charleston.

There are several room types, including two suite variations with living rooms and balconies, the largest being approximately 725 square feet. Each guestroom includes vintage seating and sideboards with custom fabric headboards ranging from detailed chintz to soft pastel stripes. Rooms vary in color scheme, while cypress softwoods stripe the floors and walls of communal spaces.

Located within The George Hotel, The Independent is a seafood restaurant and raw bar paying homage to the community’s former seafood market by the same name. Guests can expect a seasonal menu of Southern-inspired dishes guided by the region’s seafood. Raw offerings such as littleneck clams, peel-and-eat shrimp and oysters on the half shell are complemented by prepared small plates, chef selections and à la carte proteins and sides.

Located on The George’s greenspace, Eliza’s waterfront bar serves as a casual retreat along the Sampit Riverfront with lounge seating and outdoor games. It offers island-inspired cocktails with a small menu of light bites, snacks and a full raw bar, as well. The name serves as tribute to South Carolina’s Eliza Lucas Pickney, who was largely responsible for the indigo crop hitting the map, and the first woman to be inducted into South Carolina’s Business Hall of Fame.

For more information, visit www.thegeorgehotelsc.com.

DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - The Dorchester County Council is looking at a proposal to rezone 300 acres of land in St. George through using a new process.

The rezone ask is to allow for clusters of homes and create a high-density neighborhood at the old St. George Country Club property. Monday, the topic appeared on the agenda only as an informational meeting within the planning committee.

Committee Chair Dave Chinnis says the informational meeting a the committee level first is a somewhat new step in the process.

“One of the things that we seem to always do is give everything a first reading automatically. But we also had questions so then we get a second reading, and we ask questions, and we weren’t getting answers. To a third reading, which was ultimately when we were making the decision to pass or not to pass to zone or not rezone something,” Chinnis says.

Walking through that process, Chinnis says the lack of preparation didn’t make much sense to him. Talking with a Charleston County Council acquaintance, he decided to adopt one of their steps for large proposals - like the 300 acres in St. George. Thus, the informational meeting now happens before coming to council, to make future readings and public hearings even clearer on the details.

“I believe this St. George project is probably only the second maybe the third that we’ve had this,” Chinnis says.

Chinnis says this process will hopefully benefit everyone with an interest in a project. At the old St. George Country Club, the land is zoned agricultural, which allows for building houses on one-acre plots. The developer wants to change that to one-third acre plots but is promising to include green space. Chinnis says he’s already been able to nail down what that green space will be.

“I know in this case, we talked about open space being accessible, like community parks, pocket parks, so the people living in this neighborhood can go to their local park,” Chinnis says.

Chinnis says this is only the earliest stage of the major proposal, and there will be three full council readings, including a public hearing in the future. Now, he believes, those discussions will have more answers readily available when the public or council asks questions.

“The public gets input on everything. Sometimes there’s reasonable concerns. A property owner has certain rights, just like the person speaking has rights on their property. That property owner has rights on what they can and can’t do to their property and balancing that is always the challenge,” Chinnis says.

Chinnis says the public hearing for the 300-acre old St. George Country Club re-zone request will be at the St. George chambers, and the date will be posted 15 days ahead of time.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

ST. GEORGE — Four former classrooms in the historic Rosenwald School in St. George will once again become a place to teach young minds as the space becomes the Children’s Museum of the Lowcountry’s first — but not last — satellite location outside of Charleston.

The renovated St. George Rosenwald school is one of about 500 in the state and one of nearly 5,000 in the South, all constructed in the early 1900s. Those who have rallied behind preserving the school envision it becoming the community center of the town. It reopened to the public in August.

When it was built in 1925, it was a six-teacher school dedicated to educating African American children. Now, the north wing of the H-shaped building will take on a new life educating future generations as an extension of the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry.

A new museum

The approximately 2,500 square-foot space within the Rosenwald School will feature a tinker lab with hands-on exhibits to explore engineering concepts; a child-sized grocery store where children can learn about nutrition, commerce and money; a space that can promote visual and performing arts; and classroom space for educational programs or field trip groups. It is expected to open in spring 2024.

Karen Coltrane, CML’s president and CEO, called it a "natural extension of our efforts to serve the greater Lowcountry" outside of its downtown Charleston location.

Coltrane said it’s about teaching kids basic concepts that they can connect to real-world situations. For example, a child may see the apple tree and grocery area in the new exhibit, and the next time they are at the store with a parent, they can understand apples come from trees and that people buy apples at the store with money.

“Making those kinds of connections are vital in early development,” Coltrane said. “It’s easier to get them excited about science and learning when they’re little instead of trying to spark it later.”

The milestone marks the nation's first adaptive reuse of a Rosenwald School as a children's museum satellite. It's the starting point for the museum's plans to expand to more rural areas of the Lowcountry.

“It’s going to be a game-changer in expanding access to museum resources for school field trips,” Coltrane said. “By the time you load up a bunch of kids from these more rural areas and bring them downtown, they don’t have a lot of time to spend at the museum itself. This would give them more hands-on access closer to home.”

Connecting past with present

Ralph James, chairman of the board that operates the Rosenwald school, called the restored building the “jewel of the community.”

“It has always been the desire of the community and alumni of the school to see it restored,” James said. “The original effort of the school was built on the foundation of an opportunity to empower members of our community to be able to increase their educational pursuits. We look forward to offering cultural enrichment to the community once again and again charging students with the task to be all that they can be.”

Revitalizing the school has been more than a decade in the making.

Coltrane had taken a tour of the Rosenwald building in 2015 with then-state Rep. Patsy Knight. At the time it was shuttered, shrubs were overgrown and the weatherworn building was not in great shape, Coltrane recalled. She was leading EdVenture in Columbia, scouting for a potential secondary location. While it didn’t pan out, it ignited the idea for the historic building's potential to become a museum outpost.

Coltrane had moved on to other ventures before returning to the Palmetto State to lead the Children's Museum in downtown Charleston. During her second week on the job, Ralph James, board director of the Rosenwald School, called her asking if a children’s museum satellite post was still on the table. Her immediate answer was yes.

While grants and donations are funding the buildout of the project, Coltrane hopes to secure federal and state funding to operate it in the short term. Ultimately, the goal is to open another satellite location in Dorchester County that could help offset operating costs for the Rosenwald location.

The Children’s Museum downtown sees roughly 130,000 visitors per year. The museum is currently trying to raise $4 million to revamp the downtown location. While expanding the downtown location is out of the question, Coltrane hopes they can reconfigure and maximize the space with new and refreshed exhibits.

“Because we operate within the constrictions of a historic building, the only way to grow is to make the best of the space we have and add additional locations,” Coltrane said.

Business

Investing in the future

The project was funded through investments totaling $300,000 made by Boeing Co. and other local philanthropists.

Erin Fisher, a senior manager for the 787 maker's community engagement efforts, said that efforts to develop a workforce pipeline can't just target high school and college-age students. She said it starts by pushing children to embrace problem-solving and science- and math-based concepts, with the hope that it will set them down a career path in advanced manufacturing or engineering, she said.

“Our work with the Children's Museum is a way to support education from cradle to career,” she said. “This is an opportunity to engage with students on the early childhood level to spark the curiosity that leads to an innovative mindset. That is what we're looking for in our workforce and teammates here at Boeing South Carolina.”

Over the last five years, Boeing has donated $925,000 toward the museum's makerspace, pop-up tinker shop and mobile STEM lab programs that expand the museum’s outreach beyond Charleston county.

Business

Mission first

Coltrane said that she is proud that the first satellite location is driven by being of service to the community rather than revenue generation.

“Mission and margin drive each other forward, but growth is not just defined by the bottom line," Coltrane said. "The priority now is to see growth in the number of children we can reach across the Lowcountry and the types of services we can offer them outside of our downtown hub.”

James hailed the project as an example of the good that can come from public-private partnerships, when the community, town, county, public officials and companies unite for the same goal.

“We are very fortunate to have a multiple-pronged approach to what we can offer,” James said. “We'll be able to demonstrate history from 1925 through now. This place has always been about empowering our young folk, so now we're able to do the same thing, especially with the utilization of the Children's Museum.”

Visits to tour the historic classrooms are currently by appointment only. Once the museum outpost comes online, there will be more regular hours, according to James.

“Having a partner, purpose and a vision was the catalyst that got the movement going on this,” James said. “We hope that other rural areas and small towns will see the benefit of this and will duplicate the efforts happening here.”