Scooting the Issue

Peninsular Charleston’s problem of striking the right balance between development and quality neighborhoods has really found a home in West Ashley.
This week, several neighborhood associations are in full-action mode after they discovered that the owner of the Charleston Scooter Company, situated in a former Savannah Highway service station located catty-corner from the Coburg cow, has filed a permit to open a private club on the premises.
Emails and phone calls have been whizzing back and forth between representatives of several associations and the county planning office, which received the permit request.
Storeowner Mike Schillo said he has been trying for several months to transform the former Phillips 66 station at 844 Savannah Hwy. into a private club “like the Sand Dollar Social Club down on Folly.” The Wisconsin native has operated the scooter store there for the past three years.
He envisions outside tables, sports themes, and televisions, with food coming later. “I’d love to put a band outside, but I would check on the (noise) ordinances before I did that,” he said. An engineer has already been hired and a plan produced.
Schillo said he was going for private-club status because it would be too expensive to install a full kitchen there. “Once you start putting in stoves and fridges, you never know where the price is going to end up,” said Schillo.
Daniel Pennick, director of the county’s Zoning and Planning Department, said Schillo’s request includes moving the scooter store to a prefab metal building next door, and using the main building as a “restaurant/lounge” with alcohol sales. Most of the seating woud be indoors, but some seating and waiting areas outside under the existing canopy.
Additionally, Pennick said last Friday that the request was for the new use to be open seven days a week, from 2 p.m. until 2 a.m.
Schillo’s zoning request will be heard at a county Board of Zoning Appeals public hearing Monday, Sept. 9 at 5:30 p.m. in County Council chambers located in the Lonnie Hamilton III Public Services Building off Leeds Avenue at 4045 Bridge View Dr. in North Charleston.
City planners expect Schillo to ask for a further variance at an October BZA meeting dealing with his setback buffer, should he be granted his first request.
Schillo’s plans have caught the ire of not just the neighborhoods, which have been fighting to mitigate the effect of an already burgeoning nightlife scene in the Avondale Point area, but also of County Commissioner Colleen Condon, who represents West Ashley.
Condon said this week that while Schillo has every right to apply for permits needed to open a tavern of some sort there, it would be “highly unlikely” that the county would approve his requests.
Conceding that Schillo’s private property rights needed to be considered, Condon reiterated that there were so many more permits and variances that needed to be granted before any kind of on-premises alcohol sales were allowed, it would be unlikely he would ever get what he wanted.
West Ashley neighborhood associations bordering the Avondale Point area — where bars and restaurants have opened rapidly over the past three years — had worked hard to get City Hall on their side. Now, some fear they will have to reinvent the wheel all over again with the county.
Melissa Delaney, who serves on the Ashley Forest Traffic and Safety Committee, said she loved the idea of additional businesses opening in the area, “like a café that served lunch and breakfast.”
But another nighttime bar gives her the chills.
And perhaps with good reason.
Within the last year and a half, at least three pedestrians crossing Savannah Highway have been struck by cars and sent to the hospital while walking from one hot spot to another.
Traffic in and around the neighboring streets have been choked to a crawl at times, as residents have worried whether emergency vehicles could get to their homes in cases of fire or accidents.
Parking was a major sore spot in Delaney’s neighborhood, where cars lined up in yards until the wee hours, only to be replaced later by empty beer cans, cigarette butts, wailing drunken girlfriends, and other bits of good-time trash.
The city responded with increased police patrols, new road striping, and signs telling motorists where they couldn’t park.
Bars and restaurants in the Ashley Shoppes development, spearheaded by the owners of the Mellow Mushroom, also responded; they hired a private valet service and leased space at several nearby daytime businesses to augment their existing lots.
According to a recent planning charette put on by the West Ashley-James Island Business Association (WAJIBA), there’s a 200-space deficit at peak times for the businesses that line both sides of Avondale Point.
Currently, Schillo leases his scooter lot at night for valet use, and according to County planner Pennick, about 20 cars end up there at night, representing about one-quarter of all the valet spaces.
City planner Christopher Morgan said that the city would not approve any new nighttime businesses along that stretch that didn’t have its own parking.
Schillo said the County has asked for upward of 30 or more parking spots for his intended use and finds it unfair that nearby bars and taverns don’t have anywhere near the same parking as he does.
County planner Pennick agreed that Schillo’s plot has “some” parking, being a triangle piece, surrounded by roadways on three sides.
Schillo’s argument may be bolstered by the improvements parking mitigation has already brought, and that his space used to house a bar.
That bar, Condon claims, also got cited for selling alcohol for off-premises consumption.
Schillo may become the victim of bad timing, as a proposed four-story storage shed facility on St. Andrews Boulevard has caused further concern about the pace of development of the part of West Ashley closest to the peninsula.
Additionally, parking problems on another nearby county-controlled piece of West Ashley, the one that houses Mex 1 Cantina on St. Andrews Boulevard, became so pronounced that residents put up signs in their own yards, pleading for patrons to not park there.
Condon said it was concerns like this that led County Council this week to agree on the “concept” of an overlay district for this part of West Ashley, to better dovetail development efforts and controls with the city.efforts and controls with the city.