Women's Clothing Boutique Near Me Port Royal, SC

By Delayna Earley

The Island News

The first inclusive playground in Beaufort County officially opened on Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024.

The Bruce Edgerley Inclusive Playground opened with a crowd of about 50 people in attendance, but more families came following the ceremony to enjoy the new facility.

The playground equipment, which cost nearly $800,000, was installed in July 2023, but it was revealed and reported to Beaufort County Council in September 2023 that proper procurement code was not followed in the purchase of the equipment.

At the time, Shannon Loper was the Beaufort County Parks and Recreation Director, but she is no longer employed by the county.

Six months after the equipment was initially installed, the playground is now open and can be used by members of the public.

Interim County Administrator John Robinson announced during the Jan. 8, 2024, County Council meeting that the contractors finished sidewalks just after Christmas and revealed the date of the grand opening and ribbon cutting, but made no mention of the issues surrounding the playground beginnings.

The new playground is in Port Royal at the Port Royal Community Center.

The equipment is inclusive because it goes beyond American with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards to accommodate children of all abilities, according to Hannah Nichols, Beaufort County’s Public Information Officer.

Among the typical pieces you might see at a playground, it features a flush entry to the equipment, unitary turf surfacing, new restrooms and sensory areas.

While the playground will be managed and maintained by Beaufort County, the town of Port Royal will step in to help where it is needed, Port Royal Mayor Kevin Phillips said.

Phillips, who just celebrated the birth of his first child, said that he is very excited about the opening of the new playground and that Port Royal was chosen as the site for the playground.

He said that they specifically chose to have the event on a Saturday so that more families and children would be able to attend and use the playground.

“It’s a beautiful playground,” Phillips said. “I’m excited to see people enjoying it.”

Delayna Earley formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.

Port Royal’s new mayor has only been on the job for a week and he and the town council are already out of patience with the developer who promised to deliver a world-class waterfront transformation.

The town’s residents and leaders are frustrated with the lack of progress on the remaking of its treasured waterfront and drawing a line in the sand with the developer Safe Harbor Marinas. In a six-page letter penned Dec. 14 to the major marina operator, the town’s elected officials are demanding answers on why they’ve seen little progress in the two years since Safe Harbor purchased the property. The town is also threatening breach of the development agreement if Safe Harbor keeps using the property to build docks that have nothing to do with the Port Royal redevelopment.

The letter was addressed to Peter Clark, Dallas-based Safe Harbor Marina’s chief development officer but also sent to other top Safe Harbor brass. In it, the town outlines a host of concerns that reveal its frustrations with the pace of the project for the Battery Creek shoreline that some refer to as the front porch of the community.

Among the frustrations: The “impermissible” use of the Battery Creek property for manufacturing operations not tied specifically to the Port Royal development, continued development delays, missed deadlines and a lack of communication about the status of the work.

Those concerns aren’t new. Residents have been publicly complaining for months about huge cranes assembling docks on the property and plans for rental townhouses. Meanwhile, town officials and attorneys have been privately having conversations with Safe Harbor and among themselves in executive sessions about the status of the plans.

But the letter was the first time the town put all of its concerns in writing and placed Safe Harbor on notice that it expects better. It comes just more than a month after the Nov. 7 election that saw Kevin Phillips win the mayor’s seat after campaigning on more transparency, accountability and communication over the waterfront development. Phillips took office on Dec. 13.

“The letter is not in any way meant to be confrontational,” Phillips said. “We want to have a great relationship with Safe Harbor and we want them to be successful.”

Town Council members, Phillips said, just want Safe Harbor to work with the town on plans that will better fit the makeup of the town.

The letter, which was crafted by the Town Council and signed by Phillips, sets deadlines when the town expects answers from Safe Harbor to its questions.

“Your purchase of the Property was announced with great fanfare, and was viewed by the Town Council of the Town of Port Royal, as the governing body of the Town, and our citizens as a welcome change after years of wasted opportunity by the former owners,” the letter says.

It continues: “Despite initial momentum, the Town is concerned about the lack of quantifiable development.”

Safe Harbor’s Clark did not respond to an email request for comment.

Safe Harbor purchased the former South Carolina State Ports Authority property from Gray Ghost Properties, which had bought the land from the South Carolina Ports Authority for $9 million in 2017 on Nov. 12 2021, for $20.5 million with the intent of building a 300-slip marina, hundreds of homes and commercial properties. Town residents would like to see additional restaurants and services.

At the time, the town notes, Jason Hogg, Safe Harbor’s chief investment officer, said, “We look forward to working with the town of Port Royal to create a world class boating destination.”

The letter notes that Safe Harbor recently passed the two-year anniversary of the purchase and, to the town’s knowledge, no construction has occurred on the marina, the residential neighborhoods or other facets of the project. Safe Harbor has completed a considerable amount of site preparation work, including the demolition of the former South Carolina Ports Authority terminal and improvements to a large boat storage facility. It’s also working with state and federal permitting authorities.

In advance of the acquisition of the 300 acres, the town and Safe Harbor negotiated a revised development agreement for a unit development plan on July 14. Those documents set planning and construction deadlines that are either quickly approaching or have passed.

The first phase of the development schedule, from 2021-2023, provides that construction of the marina and the Bluff Neighborhood would begin. The park sites and pedestrian promenade system, designed to accommodate and link future phases of development, were supposed to begin that time frame too.

“To the Town’s knowledge, none of the construction for the infrastructure, the Marina, the Bluff Neighborhood or Ribaut Village have commenced,” the town writes. “Additionally, no action has been taken on the residential areas such that those parcels will be available for sale in 2023 and conversations regarding the Dock Facilities and the Seafood Facilities have stalled.”

To date, Safe Harbor also has failed to get approval for a master plan from the town, another requirement before construction can begin, the letter says.

In the letter, the town requests that Safe Harbor advise it on the status of the development timing of the various tracts in the property no later than Jan. 12.

Here’s the town’s top concerns, as outlined in the letter:

The letter is formal notice, the town says, that assembling docks at the site unrelated to the development in Port Royal violates the planned unit development, which anticipated light industry such as boat building. Docks are being assembled but shipped to other Safe Harbor properties.

The town has treated the dock building as a temporary use until now.

“However, given the scale, lack of substantive marina improvements (related to the Project) and continued manufacturing of other dock facilities, the Town demands that all such operations permanently cease and be removed by no later than January 12, 2024,” the letter says.

However, if Safe Harbor can provide written evidence that the regulatory approvals and permits for the actual development of the marina and the accessory dock facilities will be received prior to Jan. 31, the town is willing to discuss allowing the construction equipment to remain on the property to expedite the marina development.

Absent written confirmation of permit approval, the deadline for ending industrial activities will be enforced “as a material breach of the Development Agreement and other applicable Town ordinances.”

In August, Charleston-based The Beach Company, working with Safe Harbor on The Bluff housing portion of the project, unveiled a plan to build 205 townhouses on Battery Creek that would be for rent, not for sale. The town says in the letter that it is “unequivocally opposed” to those plans.

At the time, The Beach Company said a “perfect storm” of site challenges drove up infrastructure costs, requiring a pivot to rentals. It cited elevated levels of pollution in a former railroad bed known as the “Magnolia line” and a big grade change. The town’s eleted officials are skeptical that explanation and they don’t understand how the project is too contaminated for individual property owners, but not too contaminated for the proposed rentals. The town is asking Safe Harbor if and why The Beach Company is still involved and if Safe Harbor has talked to any other developers. It has asked for a written response to its questions no later than Jan. 12.

The town also wants assurances that Safe Harbor will work with it to build a new shrimp boat dock and seafood processing facility near Fishcamp on 11th Street and that Safe Harbor will grant an easement needed through its property to facilitate an extension of the Spanish Moss Trail to the waterfront.

This story was originally published December 26, 2023, 12:33 PM.

Residents of Port Royal are turning up the volume in their criticism of a plan to repurpose and beautify an ugly industrial waterfront in Port Royal — a project initially marketed as one of the preeminent residential, commercial and deep water marina ports on the entire East Coast. Meanwhile, the Town Council is consulting with its attorney to see if the plan continues to be in accordance with with the development agreement.

Safe Harbor Marinas, the world’s largest marina owner and operator, bought some 2 miles of Port of Port Royal waterfront almost 2 years ago for $20 million with plans to build what company officials described as a world-class marina and waterfront housing that they said would jibe with the town’s existing neighborhoods. Residents could hardly wait.

Now they’re questioning Safe Harbor plans for all-rental housing in the northern sections of the development. And they are irked by massive cranes scarring the skyline over Battery Creek. Those cranes are working in the areas slated to become the boatyard and marina, but they are assembling docks that have nothing to do with the redevelopment of the former South Carolina Ports Authority property.

“There is no escaping the sight of them,” Tricia Fidrych, a Port Royal resident, said of the cranes. “No matter where you are, you see gargantuan metal industrial structures.”

She says the town needs to hold Safe Harbor’s feet to the fire and that the developer needs to be more transparent with its plans, a view that other residents have shared in recent weeks.

To be sure, Safe Harbor, which did not respond to a request for comment, has done a considerable amount of site preparation, including demolition of old concrete structures that had littered the property and refurbishing some buildings as office space. The developer has also applied for permits for the marina and released a preliminary housing plan. But no physical work has begun yet on the housing or marina or a promenade along the waterfront, a key feature of the project that will give residents access to views along Battery Creek.

The marina and housing are planned on 50 acres of 317 acres Safe Harbor bought in November 2021 from Grey Ghost Properties. At the time of the purchase, Jason Hogg, chief investment officer for Safe Harbor, promised a “world class boating destination.”

“This,” said Fidrych, the resident who complained at two recent Town Council meetings, “is not looking like a world class boating destination.”

Here’s the status of the multiple features of the project and why residents are raising concerns:

Safe Harbor Marina is proposing a full-service marina to provide berthing space for seasonal and transient recreational boaters in the Port Royal area — and those traversing the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.

The commercial marina would have 151 dedicated wet slips, 3,284 linear feet of side-tie dockage, 40 floating jet docks and marine utilities, according to information on file with the U.S Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Environmental Health and Control. A floating harbormaster’s office will be located on the floating docks.

The dock plan for the marina has been submitted to the DHEC and the Army Corps of Engineers, Scheaffer Watt, a project manager for Watt Inc., a construction management company working for Safe Harbor, told the Town Council during a meeting in August.

Safe Harbor is now awaiting approval of the dock configuration before proceeding with construction, Watt said.

Meanwhile, huge cranes have been working for months in the boatyard and marina area assembling docks. What bothers residents is that those docks are not for use in the new marina planned in Port Royal. Rather, Safe Harbor Marinas is using the Port Royal property, for now, as a staging area to assemble docks that are shipped for use at other locations under its management. A subcontractor called Harbor Masters that is handling the work has set up an office on Paris Avenue.

“That’s not really what we envisioned looking at indefinitely,” Councilman Darryl Owens said.

Mayor Joe DeVito pressed Watt, the construction manager, for an answer in August on when the marina work would begin and how much longer the work putting together docks for use at other sites would go on in Port Royal. Watt said as soon as the permits are approved, “we will begin to construct those docks” for the Port Royal project.

Safe Harbor Marinas has a temporary use permit from the town to do the work putting together docks, DeVito said. But it has no timeline on how long the work can continue.

Safe Harbor is planning to significantly increase the amount of “dry stack” boat storage and related services needed to service boats.

Unlike traditional wet storage at a marina, dry stack storage involves storing your boats out of the water on racks, which allow them to be stacked on top of each other.

A dry stack building with a 150-boat capacity already exists with docks. Additional outdoor dry stack rack storage is planned that would accommodate another 150 boats.

Safe Harbor has torn down the landmark 48,000-square-foot single-story concrete building on the waterfront that once was the centerpiece of the South Carolina Ports Authority property. It saved the 102,000 square-foot over-water concrete wharf. A hotel is not going in on that terminal slab, said Watt, the construction manager, responding to rumors. Rather, that space will be used as maneuvering space for the marine forklifts that support launching and retrieval of the boats.

A lean-to has been built on the edge of the current dry stack building. That will be divided into 11 spaces for tradesmen that work on boats. For example, a boat could be pulled in and placed on a rack and have detail work done.

The first phase of the housing plans call for around 200 townhouses and some 30 single-family homes on the north end of the site. Charleston-based The Beach Company, which is overseeing the housing portion of the project, said it decided to build rentals because of the unanticipated high cost of preparing the site, which has a steep grade and needs cleanup because of pollution along an old rail line.

The units, even though they would be rented, “would fit the fabric” of Port Royal, company officials have, because they would maintain the community’s high architectural standards. They would be rented with annual leases.

Residents and council members are not buying the argument that “build-to-rent” units are necessary because of the contamination issues. And a project entirely made up of rental units would not fit the fabric of the town, they add.

“If you literally cannot put down roots because of soil contamination and metaphorically you cannot put down roots because ‘we are hoping for at least a year’s lease’ how does that fit the fabric of Port Royal?,” said Fidrych, the Port Royal resident, calling the housing a “wall of townhouses.”

At the close of a work session last Wednesday, the five-member Town Council voted to close the doors to the public. The stated purpose was to get legal advice “related to Port of Port Royal Development Agreement and PUD (Planned Unit Development).”

“We had our attorney go through the development agreement and say where they (Safe Harbor Marinas) are in relationship to the development agreement,” said Mayor DeVito, adding he could not share details of what was said.

The development agreement between Port Royal and Safe Harbor says construction on the marina, Bluff neighborhood and promenade should commence between 2021 and 2023, with the entire development anticipated to take place over 5 to 7 years. Housing demand and the economy could affect the schedule, the agreement says.

The development agreement is a master conceptual plan of what the property should look like, with timelines, and a guiding master plan for the developer, said DeVito.

A planned unit development, another document, is guiding the specifics of each of the different areas within the property, DeVito said. Those development areas are Ribaut and Bluff villages, where the residential housing is planned; Marina Village, which includes the marina and boatyard; Port Village, which allows mixed uses including a hotel and restaurants; and civic open space.

The concerns are being raised as an election for mayor looms Nov. 7.

Councilman Kevin Phillips, who is running against DeVito for mayor, said the town needs to use the tools in the development agreement and the PUD “to hold Safe Harbor accountable.” “We just need to be tougher on them,” he says. Safe Harbor, he says, is “trying to bamboozle us” on the rental housing, and taking advantage of the town by using the port to build marina docks for others. That work, he says, should be stopped until Safe Harbor and the town sit down and have a conversation on how to move forward.

For his part, DeVito said town officials and legal council continue to review the situation.

“We’re doing our annual review and making sure they are following and meeting all of the deadlines that are required and we will continue collaborative negotiations to obtain the development that fits the fabric of Port Royal,” DeVito said.

Safe Harbor’s purchase of the property from Grey Ghost Properties in December 2021 was welcomed initially, DeVito said, because it had deeper pockets.

But it’s been almost 2 years since the sale and the town is concerned about how long it is taking for some of the components of the development to get going, particularly the residential, DeVito added.

“It just seems to take a little longer than we all would like,” DeVito said.

Nothing can be built on the property until specific “master plans” are submitted to the town for each of the multiple sections of the property, which carry different uses and requirements, DeVito said.

The town recently removed its crumbling old shrimp docks with plans to replace the docks with a new configuration. After talking with shrimpers, the town is looking at floating docks with a fender system rather than a fixed pier, said Van Willis, the town’s manager. The dock also will be positioned farther out into the channel giving the boats more maneuverability.

“It will be more suitable for the use,” Councilman Jerry Ashmore said.

This story was originally published October 9, 2023, 3:21 PM.

In the wake of concerns the town has raised about the pace and details of Safe Harbor Marina’s multi-million dollar redevelopment of the Port of Port Royal, Safe Harbor has requested a meeting to clear the air — and preferably by the end of the month.

Peter H. Clark, Safe Harbor’s Dallas, Texas-based chief development officer, made the request for an in-person meeting with Town of Port Royal officials in a Jan. 9 letter that came in response to concerns town officials previously raised about the plan to redevelop some 50 acres of more than 300 it owns on the shores of Battery Creek.

“Safe Harbor believes that an in-person meeting between the Developer and the Town will be the most efficient forum to discuss and reach prompt resolution on the Town’s remaining concerns to ensure the shared desire of successful redevelopment of the Property, and looks forward to discussing same before the end of the month,” Safe Harbor’s Clark says in the letter.

At a Town Council meeting Wednesday, officials announced they had received the letter from Safe Harbor and called it a positive development, but the full contents were not released until Thursday. In that letter, requested by the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet, Clark notes that the town had requested Safe Harbor address a number of items by Jan. 12. But he added that those matters would benefit from discussion between the town’s staff, consultants and legal counsel prior to responding. Therefore, he said, Safe Harbor requests a meeting on Jan. 31 “or some other mutually agreeable time.”

Once anchored by the South Carolina Ports Authority terminal, the Port of Port Royal is sandwiched between the historic portion of the Town and Battery Creek. Safe Harbor is planning what it calls a world-class marina with ancillary businesses and hundreds of units of housing. The town also hopes to see restaurants and other businesses developed and improved access to the water via parks and a promenade. The town is working on its own port improvements, including building a new dock and seafood processing facility in a nod to its deep ties to the shrimping industry as well as extending the popular Spanish Moss trail.

Close coordination is required for each of this efforts because Safe Harbor owns property that is involved in those plans.

Frustrated by what they view as delays and a lack of information about plan specifics, on Dec. 14, the town sent a six-page correspondence to the marina operator seeking resolution to these issues, which prompted the Jan. 9 response from Safe Harbor.

One of the town’s concerns that Safe Harbor did respond to in the letter was the warehousing and use of materials by a contractor, Harbormasters International, to support the assembly of floating dock pontoons, unrelated to the Port Royal Development, for use at other Safe Harbor properties (Safe Harbor owns 80 marinas in 19 states). The town previously told Safe Harbor it considers those activities in breach of the development agreement.

But while Safe Harbor says in the letter that it agrees that light industry is not permitted in the area known as Port Village 5, it argues that those operations are contained to another area, known as Port Village 4, where it says that type of work is allowed.

The town also had requested written evidence regarding regulatory approvals for the marina and associated dock facilities. Safe Harbor says in the letter that it anticipates that those permits will be issued by the end of this month.

Safe Harbor also sent the town revisions to two deeds involved in a proposed land swap that will facilitate the town’s seafood facility construction.

A draft easement across a portion of the Safe Harbor property for the Spanish Moss Trail also was sent to the town.

As of today, the date and location for the requested in-person meeting has not been set.

This story was originally published January 12, 2024, 11:12 AM.

We’ve all known about The Sands Beach in Port Royal and now the word is getting out because of a recent online article by the online magazine, Only In Your State.com.

Our little gem of a spot is home to several events hosted by the Town of Port Royal and others. It’s a great spot for sunbathing, finding sharks teeth, relaxing walks, fishing and lots more.

And now the word is out.

“South Carolina’s coastline is chalk-full of hidden beaches that only locals know about,” and “one of those fantastically hidden beaches is located in the Town of Port Royal,” the article said.

“The Sands beach may be the only one of its kind in South Carolina. At this fun little getaway, you can picnic right out of your car while you soak up some summer sun and swim, or search for shells or sharks teeth.”

Yep, you’re allowed to bring your car right out onto the edge of the sand and park it there, but not on the actual beach.

The article explained just exactly what The Sands is, for those who may not know.

“The Sands is a tidal beach, but it’s not oceanfront, so you don’t have to worry about riptides or huge waves. But you should bring beach shoes for the water,” the article said.

They are on point with that. Shoes are definitely important at The Sands because of the razor sharp clusters of oyster shells that are present everywhere.

The article goes on to mention the boardwalk as a fantastic picturesque walk along Battery Creek that’s great for dolphin watching; and the observation tower as a spot with a super view and also a perfect location to see sunrises and sunsets.

One more important thing the article mentions about The Sands…..the tides.

“If parking at the beach, you should always be aware of the tide schedule, especially during a full moon, when high tides are even higher than normal,” it said.

Yep. That’s important. Lots of folks have gotten stuck out at The Sands in their vehicles when not anticipating the tides.

Port Royal, and locals have all known for a long time that there was something special there. And, now, the word is definitely out.

See the full article here.

Read more about The Sands here.