‘Centering’ on Avondale

Avondale just got a little bit hotter. Local attorney and developer John Hagerty just paid a bunch of money for a former school at the corner of Sycamore Avenue and Magnolia Road, and is promising to turn it into an “accelerator” for local businesses, both for- and not-for-profit.
Hagerty is also considering using the facility’s auditorium and kitchen to host live events, like theater productions, music shows, and maybe even a wedding or two.
Originally a school and more recently an assisted living facility, the 23,000-square-foot building has been vacant for several years.Dubbing it “Avondale Center,” the building was just too good to pass up, said Hagerty, a real estate and international law partner in the Charleston office of Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough’s Charleston office, one of the largest firms in the state.
“What attracted me? I liked the fact it was a brick building: it’s built solid,” said Hagerty, who owns everything from a downtown building that’s home to Trio Lounge dance club to a plastics building at the Wando Welch Terminal ports facility.
“It’s really well located and zoned general office, and in that neighborhood it means tenants can ride their bikes to work,” he said, adding that another big part of his decision was the city park next door, Magnolia Park and Community Garden.
“Imagine having an office with access into a park and a garden; it was a very attractive part of this project,” said Hagerty. “And the proximity to downtown is terrific,” he said.
It is a unique site. Originally an all-white public elementary school when it was built in 1953, it ceased welcoming students more than a decade ago. For the past four years, it has sat dormant, with a big price tag affixed to it.
Before that, the school had been transformed for a few years into a medical facility for the elderly.
Chris Fraser, the commercial realtor who will begin renting out space in the center, said while the building does show a small degree of “demolition by neglect,” it is in remarkably good shape.
Several years ago, nearly 4-acres directly behind the former school were sold off to the Charleston Parks Conservancy, who turned it into a community garden facility, before deeding it back to the city for use as a park.
The conservancy is still in the early planning stages of building what it hopes will be it permanent home of the back half of the plot, according to executive director Harry Lesesne, near a crop of grand trees.
The conservancy’s purchase of the land with public greenbelt dollars scuttled another developer’s plans to raze the site and build a series of interconnected patio homes.
Hagerty said he is already in talks with a “major, local non-profit” to take up residency, and the founder of a local theater company who lives a few blocks away trilled at the possibility of another theater space in Charleston, especially in Charleston.
Hagerty said he is hopeful that he will be able to begin leasing spaces within the next few months.
To oversee the rebirth of the center, he has hired local architect Reggie Gibson, whose firm has produced everything from downtown’s Hall’s Chophouse to several buildings at the Center for Birds of Prey in Awendaw.
On Friday, workers donned masks and worked to rip out the insulation and drop-ceiling tiles. The halls are long and have miles of hardwood floor covered in renovation detritus.
The auditorium is bigger than half a basketball court, with a full stage at one end, and a full kitchen feeding into it, with a full complement of appliances.
But perhaps what will be most calming to the center’s neighbors is the abundance of parking the site has on two of its L-shaped sides.
Ashley Forest and Wedge Park have been deeply affected in recent years by a resurgent restaurant strip at Avondale Pointe. Diners and revelers made an unwelcomed entrance a few years ago into peoples’ yards there.
Hagerty likes the proximity between his center and the growing dining strip.
“It will be an interesting [situation] for small businesses to interact,” he said.