We’re Saved …On Paper!

City planning director Tim Keane has been busy this week, pitching City Hall’s five-point plan to improve West Ashley’s retail and business climate.
Work on the plan began eight months ago in response to Citadel Mall going into receivership after its then-owners had failed to pay on the multi-million dollar loan it had taken out to purchase the more than 1-million-square-foot facility.
Realizing the interconnectivity between the mall and the community, city officials soon expanded the scope of the work to include other issues bedeviling West Ashley.
On Monday, Oct. 13 Keane, flanked by Mayor Joseph P. Riley, Jr., city councilmembers and office staff, unveiled the West Ashley Economic Development Strategy before a packed, 600-strong West Ashley High School.
The plan can be seen in its entirety at charleston-sc.gov/DocumentCenter/View/6398.
Wednesday morning, Keane was at it again, this time in front of members of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce. The pitch was the same, with City Hall committed to:
• Assisting private efforts to revitalize and redevelop
Citadel Mall,
• Helping revitalize the Sam Rittenberg retail corridor,
• Improving public parks,
• Rebranding West Ashley,
• And creating more community activities.
The lynchpin of the plan, work on the mall, may be the hardest to put into effect, as it’s privately owned. And because, as Keane admitted, no one involved with the mall agreed to sit down with him to discuss it.
Not the mall’s management, nor the bank that owns it. A few of the anchor stores’ representatives responded, but that was about it, he said.
It may also be the hardest to affect, as that part of the plan is easily the most ambitious. The massive overhaul calls for the interior spaces linking the separately owned anchor stores to be torn down and combined with a streetscape akin to the outdoor Towne Centre mall in Mt. Pleasant.
Streetscaping would tie together several new onsite uses, like office space to meet growing regional demands, public destinations like an indoor pool, water elements in what is now a parking lot savannah, and multi-level outbuildings marrying together different floors of retail, office, and residential living options.
Faltering malls have been a nationwide problem, so City Hall had many other redevelopment plans to lean on, like the public-private efforts at Shelter Cove Towne Centre on Hilton Head Island.
Two years ago, the town council there approved a conceptual plan not so different from the West Ashley plan that would turn a moribund shopping destination into an “upscale walking village,” replete with a host of uses and destinations.
Keane acknowledged the ongoing success that outdoor walking malls located in Mt. Pleasant and North Charleston, Tanger, influenced the city’s plan, which looked eerily similar to a conceptual plan proffered months ago by West Ashley-based architect Robert Schwartz.
Schwartz, who has specialized in upscale destinations and resorts in the Caribbean, drew up a set of plans that several of West Ashley’s councilmembers quickly became enamored with, passing it on to City Hall.
On Wednesday, councilmembers Perry Waring, Aubry Alexander, Bill Moody, Marvin Wagner, and Rodney Williams made their pitches for regional business to help back this plan.
Waring said what happened in Mt. Pleasant could occur in West Ashley. Moody said improvements along Upper King Street showed how City Hall could help speed redevelopment.
Spicing many of their comments was the lingering desire for TIF districts to find a home in West Ashley, and not just on the peninsula.
For years, Riley has used “tax increment financing districts,” which have been used successfully for decades nationwide, to redirect a bigger chunk of taxes collected within a certain area to be used for the redevelopment of that area.
Casey Glowacki, co-owner of Sesame Burgers and Beer, one of a handful of very successful businesses located within the interior spaces of the mall, said he would welcome any change.
“Something needs to be done: band-aids and sprucing up is not the ticket,” said Glowacki, who signed a 20-year lease for the spot next to Target and wonders how he would be compensated for losing his spot, even for the time it took to implement such a plan.
Right now, Glowacki finds himself in a tough spot. With the mall in receivership, but with his business booming, he still wants very much to renovate his patio into a fully enclosable space.
“What do I do? Should I spend the $40,000 or wait,” he asked, remembering how he went through the same problem downtown with another successful restaurant at the corner of King and Calhoun streets that was eventually displaced.
It would appear that Glowacki, like City Hall, and like West Ashley will remain in a wait-and-see mode, as no one from the company managing the mall responded to requests for comment for this story. Nor anyone from the bank that owns Citadel Mall.