A ‘Win‘ For the Ladies of DuWap

Two years ago, Dale Aren, Meredith Demetre, Frances Waite, and Carmen Nash banded together to block the construction of an automobile tow-yard in the midst of their neighborhoods.
Turky’s, a venerable local towing company, had purchased a street-to-street lot on Savannah Highway next to the Charleston 9 Memorial, which honored the firefighters who died trying to put out a fire at a former Sofa Super Store.
The ladies raised a stink. They attended meetings. They met with city officials. And they galvanized their neighbors to the point that Turky’s recently sold the property, which fronts on Savannah Highway and Pebble Road, to the city.
The city also recently tore down a metal building on a concrete slab that rested in the middle of the property.
And now City Councilman Bill Moody said the city is looking into building a new fire station at the site. He’s further proposing that the memorial park be conjoined with the station “into one big campus.”
“I’m probably going to take some heat for this, but I think we can do a better job honoring those men” than the current park, said Moody. He wants to see a plan that would tie together the nearby Greenway and bike paths, and bring more people to the memorial.
“The city is currently early on in the design process for the new station,” said Moody, adding that a final budget for the new building had not been solidified. Bids for another 10,000-square-foot fire station in the Carolina Bay neighborhood are in the $2.7-$3.1 million range.
Moody is still perplexed as to why the deal he brokered between the city and the towing company didn’t work out.
“We had deed restrictions in place; they were going to have landscaping, and keep it up nice,” he said. “We closed off the back of the property so that business wouldn’t roll up and down Pebble and disturb the residents there.”
Now, though, with a planned fire station slated for that same piece of property, the neighborhood could have fire trucks rolling out with sirens blazing in the middle of the night.
“I just don’t get it,” said Moody.
Waite, a state forester, said that the DuWap area and her neighbors are excited that the property is not going to become a “junk yard,” and that no one wanted to see the old Turky’s lot, located near the connector, erected on their doorsteps.
“We heard they’re could be burned cars stored there that would stink for days,” said Waite, who would prefer the noise to the noxious smell.
Demetre and the other ladies know, however, that it wasn’t just their community organizing that won the day.
“There was the chess game down the street,” said Demetre, a mother of three.
Here’s what’s she’s talking about: Charlotte-based Hendrick Automotive Group and the local Baker Motors have been buying huge swathes of land along Savannah Highway closer to the peninsula.
Hendrick bought the enormous Kmart site across from its Chevrolet dealership and turned it into a repair center, and erected a gleaming Hyundai dealership on the front of the property.
Baker had already bought some smaller businesses along the highway, including the former Regions Mortgage two-story building that abuts the former Kmart.
Now it appears that Baker has bookended the Hendricks’ purchase, by having also acquired the former Burke Motors site, as well as the municipal fire station next door to the IHOP.
Yep, you read that right: Baker bought the fire station.
Referring to his real estate committee paperwork, Moody said the city sold the half-acre lot for $1.14 million. But, he said, has the option to continue to run the station until at least January 2017, and for a year after that rent-free.
“So that gives us two years to get our act together” and build a new station at the former Turky’s site, according to Moody. After that second year, the city would have to pay rent to Baker, and would have to vacate regardless by 2020.
“Whatever it takes,” to keep the cars away and land a fire station, said Aren, a former Kiawah resident who now lives in Edgewater Park, where she is the volunteer neighborhood president.
Apparently, it takes extending the Motor Mile.