A New Day for Ashley Landing

Looks like the economic winter that descended along Sam Rittenberg Boulevard has begun to thaw.
Last week, Faison, a major commercial real estate firm out of Charlotte, which already manages properties in the area, purchased Ashley Landing Shopping Center at the corner of Old Towne Road and Sam Ritt.
Some are hailing the deal as a harbinger that the Sam Rittenberg corridor, which has suffered closings and foreclosures and shifting business fortunes of late, may be on the rebound.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it looks more promising,” said City Councilman Aubry Alexander, after speaking with one of the principals at Faison on Friday. “There’s a lot of vacant space.”
Some of that vacant space had belonged to a church, which shuttered and moved on.
Terms of the deal to purchase the 389,000-plus-square-foot, seven-store mall from The Cordish Company and LeFrak Organization were not released. Bill Barnett, managing director for Southeast Retail Development at Faison, declined to comment on Friday.
The shopping center, built in the late 1960s, was hailed as the first indoor shopping mall in this part of town. The shopping center has enjoyed ups and downs through the past five-plus decades.
For the past few years, the Sam Ritt commercial corridor has seen mostly downs, as Citadel Mall went into foreclosure, anchor stores in other shopping centers, like Marshall’s, moved to other spots, and other retail and dining spots began shuttering.
Changing national shopping trends for less retail space, the Great Recession, the advent of online shopping, and the construction of Tanger Outlet Mall in North Charleston and Towne Centre in Mt. Pleasant, all took a bite.
As did plummeting traffic counts along Old Towne Road as the naval base closing removed huge chunks of car-driving shoppers from across Northbridge.
It had gotten so bad that Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr., recently formed a committee of city staffers and local politicians to craft a revitalization plan – the first step being the recent hiring of a national consultant to guide the process.
The local chamber of commerce will host a presentation of the process at its next Business in Your Backyard meeting Feb. 26 at 7:30 a.m. at Jason’s Deli on Savannah Highway.
“Whatever happens, it’s got to better than it’s been lately,” said Red Orchid’s China Bistro owner Tony Chu, whose popular restaurant just celebrated its 10^th anniversary in the center.
Chu complains that a team of panhandlers has been working the shopping center for the past few weeks, and nothing seems to be improving.
“We’ve been hearing how the center was going to change for the past 10 years,” said Chu’s wife, co-owner Kelly, who is in the final stages of opening a French-style ice cream manufacturing site along Orleans Road.
Chu, who keeps calling the cops on the panhandlers, will soon be sending two checks to Faison, as he is set to open a new Asian-influenced restaurant, Aya, in the shopping center the company manages in Mt. Pleasant that is also home to Whole Foods.
Alexander said it was too early in the process to be able to divine how Faison wants to recast the shopping center located at the fork of Sam Ritt and Old Towne. But, he said, nothing will likely happen to the awkward merging of the two roads.
Alexander said that the potentially dangerous “alternating merge” would remain, as there is no money in the city or county left to do anything to change the traffic flow. The state has not allocated any funds to affect any traffic change, either, he said.
But, Alexander pointed out that the sale, and the success of a revamped cinema at Citadel Mall, continued to show that West Ashley was still ripe for revitalization.