Pressure Washing in Ladson, SC

LADSON, S.C. (WCIV) — There is a buzz in the Ladson area about dead bees near a house. The homeowner is concerned after finding them.

Bees are important pollinators. Many crops people eat are thanks to them. On top of that, honeybees produce honey.

Read more: Grand Bees residents voice concerns over heavy crow population in their neighborhood

"I get up in the morning, and I come through here because there is a lot of pine straw and leaves," Chris Wells said. "I'll blow all this off, so they are normally congregated around here and up here."

"In the back, don't really find many, but I got chickens back there," he continued. "(The chickens) probably eat them once they are on the ground and dead."

It's been happening over the past month. Near the front of the house, Wells says he was finding up to 100 a day. Recently, it's been a little less, but still more than 20 a day.

Wells doesn't think mosquito spraying is the cause since his house in Dorchester County was last sprayed two weeks ago. Other areas in the Lowcountry allow residents to opt out of spraying to protect bees.

Brian Fahey, who does beekeeping as a hobby, is impressed with how Charleston County officials work hard to protect the bees.

"The measures (county officials) take to make certain that they're not over-paying or contaminating any of our hives or taking out any bees (includes) spraying at night," he said. "Bees only fly during the day, they need sunlight to be able to navigate."

By looking at the pictures, Fahey thinks the bees' tongues sticking out could be a sign of poisoning, but it is hard to tell without further inspection. He says the bees definitely look older, although they typically only live up to 45 days.

Read more: Bee swarming season: what to do if you spot a swarm

"The last thing honeybees do is forage," Fahey said. "As they're forging, they're on their last legs. They're beating their wings to death."

Whatever the cause, Wells is hoping to get to the root of the problem because he believes the lack of bees around him has resulted in less pollination this year.

“We have a bunch of plants back there that needed to be pollinated," he said. "We didn't get any blueberries this year. Got a few figs, but normally, we get a pretty good amount of blueberries."

A 336-unit multifamily housing complex in Ladson called Broadstone Ingleside sold for $77.5 million, according to Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate services firm that arranged the deal.

Cushman & Wakefield’s John Phoenix, Louis Smart and Austin Green represented the seller in the transaction. The multifamily community was acquired by a joint venture between affiliates of Abacus Capital and Westbrook Partners, according to a Cushman & Wakefield news release.

"Broadstone Ingleside is a best-in-class garden asset built by one of the most prolific developers in the nation,” Smart, director at Cushman & Wakefield, said in the news release. “This deal is in the absolute bullseye for job growth and in-migration in Charleston — one of the fastest growing and most sought-after markets we cover.”

Broadstone Ingleside is a desirable property because it is positioned in a rapidly expanding North Charleston submarket just off Interstate 26, located near several big-name corporations, the news release said.

Cushman & Wakefield’s Sunbelt Multifamily Advisory Group is a 109-person investment sales team covering 11 states. The group closed $11.1 billion in sales volume through 360 deals and more than 60,300 units.

Hot Properties highlights recently sold or leased commercial properties in the Charleston region. Send in your transactions using our online form. Other recent commercial real estate transactions include:

Brent Case and Jing “Julia” Donovan of Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic represented the landlord, Windsor Hill Flex LLC, in the lease of retail/flex/office space at Suite 4 at 8210 Windsor Hill Blvd. in North Charleston. Hannah Kamba of Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic represented the tenant, La Hacienda of West Ashley LLC.

Kristen Krause of Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic represented the seller in the sale of 2,500 square feet on 1.29 acres of commercial redevelopment property at 1905 Old Trolley Road in Summerville for $1.5 million. Michael Silverman of TSCG represented the buyer.

Jing “Julia” Donovan of Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic represented the tenant, Poke Cafe Tanger Outlet LLC, in the lease of retail space at Tanger Outlet in North Charleston from Masison Plaza LLC. Chase Development Company represented the landlord.

Markus Kastenholz and Remington Beatty of Colliers South Carolina represented the buyer, Triple B Capital LLC, in the sale of retail space at 2400 Gap Road in North Charleston for $2,000,000.

Robert Pratt of Re/Max Pro Realty represented the buyer, RLP LLC and Tricom Associates LLC, in the sale of 10,880 square feet of retail space at 10599 Dorchester Road in Summerville from PRED Pharmacy-Summerville LLC for $1,850,000. Joel Cukier of Ascension Advisory represented the seller.

Patrick Nealon of Colliers South Carolina represented the seller, Arbys Properties LLC, in the sale of 2,600 square feet of retail space at 6124 Rivers Ave. in North Charleston to Abrahim Dabit.

A major foreign defense manufacturer has been operating in Charleston County for more than six months, but it has disclosed very little about the nature of its work since the facility first opened for business.

Elbit Systems America — a subsidiary of Israeli-owned Elbit Systems Inc., which has 10 sites in the U.S. mostly located on the East Coast — officially started operations in Ladson in May. As a whole, the company supplies up to 85% of land-based military equipment to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Elbit has recently seen growing demand from the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMOD) for its “solutions,” according to a Dec. 18 press release. The company’s American subsidiary also offers products and services related to commercial aviation, homeland security monitoring and night vision technology.

The S.C. manufacturing facility stands at the end of Sightline Drive, a short road just off Ladson’s Palmetto Commerce Parkway. The building is buffered from the parkway by a line of trees, equipped with a traffic light. In other words, it doesn’t stand out as a defense manufacturing plant. And yet, Elbit’s Ground Combat Vehicle Assembly and Integration Center of Excellence is exactly what it sounds like — a plant that builds truck-mounted artillery systems and command post support vehicles.

Longtime Charlestonians might remember General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) — known before a buyout as Force Protection, Inc. — as a defense plant also in the Ladson-area industrial zone. The company, once a major Charleston manufacturer, supplied millions of dollars of contracted equipment to the U.S. Department of Defense and foreign armed forces, profiting from high demand for Iraq and Afghanistan war-era battlefield vehicles. GDLS spokesperson Robin Porter told the Charleston City Paper the plant was sold to Pegasus Steel, LLC., a company first established in South Africa in 1994.

Elbit America planned to invest approximately $31 million into its project, including construction costs, according to its Charleston County contract, which the City Paper obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Elbit’s facility uses 135,000 square feet of a 175,500-square-foot building. The remainder of the space is currently available for rent. The $31 million also accounted for machinery and site design, consisting of “36-foot cast-in-place, tilt walls … [and] 14 overhead cranes used to add armor to military vehicles,” wrote Choate Construction, the group contracted to build the plant.

Charleston County first became involved in Elbit’s relocation project in 2019, when it entered negotiations with Elbit under the company’s requested code name, “Project Thunder.” Code names are a common statewide practice of assigning a made-up project name to keep relocation deals anonymous. Charleston County Council described Project Thunder as a “leading global source of innovative, technology-based systems for diverse defense, homeland security, and commercial applications.” Elbit America would use this name to “begin its tax incentives process.”

In September 2021, the S.C. Coordinating Council for Economic Development authorized Charleston County to use a $700,000 set-aside grant to assist Elbit in business operations. The county and the state’s Department of Commerce also created an “attractive package” for the project. Incentives included a fee in lieu of tax credits, known as a “FILOT,” and Special Source Revenue Credit (SSRC), two tax-lowering incentives regularly applied to major businesses.

The Elbit site qualified for FILOT, which is available to companies that invest at least $2.5 million. The FILOT can save 40% or more in property taxes. FILOT savings are even greater when, as applies to Elbit, a business is designated inside an industrial park.

The SSRC incentive is taken from FILOT revenue: Counties “award credits to taxpayers to be applied against their property taxes.” Essentially, companies get more tax credits from the tax credits they already have. Dollars saved provide a competitive advantage to relocated businesses, but at a price. A 2019 fiscal year report disclosed that companies’ extra revenue diverted $423 million from public schools across the state, disproportionately low-income schools with mostly Black and brown students.

Elbit publicly announced its 135,000-square-foot Ladson site in November 2021. Project Thunder was not revealed as Elbit until a March 2022 “public hearing prior to final action.” This was several months after the county’s economic development director had committed to granting the subsidiary tax incentives.

In earlier council discussions, county officials projected that Project Thunder would bring 302 full-time jobs to the area “during annual operation,” but Elbit America Communications Specialist Amy Hartley told the City Paper on Dec. 6 that the site had only around 50 full-time workers.

Hartley declined a City Paper request to tour Elbit’s Ladson plant “given heightened security concerns.” In recent weeks, there have been pro-Palestine demonstrations outside some of its locations. A security guard, however, said the South Carolina plant hasn’t had any recent issues.

Another statement from Hartley explicitly mentioned the site’s contract with the U.S. Army to manufacture Command Post Integrated Infrastructure trucks, despite recent press releases indicating that its main operation was fulfilling contracts from the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD) to build an automated vehicle mounted with an artillery system called a howitzer.

Elbit advertises the South Carolina-built howitzer vehicle as having “high firepower and long-range lethality.” The IDF reportedly has used the vehicle to launch white phosphorus artillery strikes in “densely populated areas of Gaza,” which Human Rights Watch says “violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life.”

In March 2019, Elbit America received $125 million from IMOD to build “automatic self-propelled howitzer gun systems” for the IDF over a 12-year period, and the group secured a $200 million “further to” the 2019 contract one year later. In November 2023, Elbit announced that it was increasing deliveries to IMOD from various sites, including U.S. subsidiaries, to support the IDF’s invasion of Gaza.

That same month, a United States Field Artillery Association news release reported that, while the Ladson site is continuing production and delivery of U.S. Army vehicles, “Elbit America has recently started production of the Sigma-Next Generation Howitzer at their Charleston, South Carolina facility and will begin deliveries to the Israeli Defense Force in 2025.”

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LADSON, S.C. (WCSC) - Representatives of the Coastal Carolina Fair are voicing their concerns about Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority’s plans to build a park-and-ride facility at the fairgrounds.

This park-and-ride facility is a part of CARTA’s Lowcountry Rapid Transit Plan – the first-ever large-scale transportation project in the region.

CARTA Chairman Mike Seekings, says this $600 million plan is the result of over a decade of regional planning.

“Large-scale transit projects are a function on the front end of planning - a lot of planning - identifying the needs of a community, and seeing how we can meet those needs by planning out the alignment, finding the funding, and we’ve done all those things. So, we’re a good ways down the road right now,” Seekings says.

If plans go through, the facility will take up about six acres of the 180 acres available for parking on the fairgrounds. Mike Jernigan, a member of the Exchange Board as well as the former president of the Coastal Carolina Fair, says that their initial discussions with CARTA were about leasing an acre to an acre and a half of land for a bus stop, but he said that CARTA wanted more land to either purchase or take by eminent domain.

Seekings is surprised by this response. He says that they spoke with the leadership of the fairgrounds early in the process and have had conversations over many years about this area of land.

Officials with the Coastal Carolina Fair say that their issue is not the size of the facility, though, but the location. The park-and-ride facility would be located in lot 2A of the fairgrounds which is adjacent to Highway 78 and Gate 2 – one of the major entrances of the fairgrounds.

“We feel like supporting public transportation is a good thing. We’re not opposed to that in any way,” Jernigan says. We just feel like this location is the wrong location. That there are other options that are available adjacent to our property, or even at a different place on our property, but not to take our prime parking spot.”

Seekings says that throughout the conversations over the years, they have changed the intended location of this facility twice, and lot 2A was what was agreed upon.

“We’ve identified, through cooperative meetings with the Exchange Club, a number of different spaces. This last one we actually had a public hearing over at their request in August,” Seekings says. “So, we’re a long way down the road. It’s not signed, sealed and delivered, but it’s unlikely that we’re going to change the routing and change the manner in which we’ve gone through a long planning process. And now, at the eleventh hour, we’re ready, we’re ready to go implement this project - cooperatively, fairly to the benefit of all citizens in the region, including but not limited to those who are aligned with the Exchange Club and those who like to go to the fair.”

Jernigan disagrees. He says that they believe the location of the facility would disrupt patrons’ ability to enter and exit the fair, hurt fair revenue generation and impact the future success of the fair as well as their ability to support their community partners.

“This lot that would be affected by this potential park-and-ride disrupts our ability to park people efficiently. It would eliminate our ability to use one of our primary gates, and we feel like the effect of that on our parking means that we have less revenue and then less money to give away to the charities that depend on the profits from the fair,” Jernigan says.

The Coastal Carolina Fair supports about 70 different nonprofit organizations and charities in the area. CARTA and the fair representatives are not seeing eye-to-eye on this park-and-ride project. Seekings said they believe this project will actually have the opposite effect and be beneficial to the fair.

“Having access to the fair from public transit brings more people to the gate, enhances gate revenue, makes it more convenient, gives you many more local connections,” Seekings says. “It will be a very cooperative and beneficial experience for both sides of this and for the region.”

Jernigan says they just want to have more conversations about these plans and alternative solutions.

“We feel like there’s too much at stake here for the community, the charities we support and the long-term future of the fair to not have more discussion about other options which we feel like are available to CARTA in this general area - but you know, potentially even on the backside of the fair property - that need to be given consideration,” Jernigan says.

Jernigan says that even though the land is privately owned, the decision is ultimately not up to him, though, it is up to government officials.

Seekings says they want to make the plan work for everyone and enhance the experience for the community, but that it is unlikely much will change now that they are this far along. He says they want to implement this plan cooperatively and fairly and he believes there is some misunderstanding here. He says that this project is world-class public transit that works for everyone.

If plans go through, construction is slated to begin in 2026 and be completed by 2029.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

LADSON, S.C. (WCSC) - The Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments held a public open house Tuesday in Ladson to provide new updates and hear from members of the community on the Lowcountry Rapid Transit.

Located at the Lowcountry Rapid Transit lines end, the new location for the proposed park and ride will be at the Exchange Park Fairgrounds in Ladson.

The more than 21-mile transit plan is to connect downtown Charleston to the Exchange Park Fairgrounds, where parking for 280 cars will be available.

The Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester Council of Governments says the location of the park and ride system will be a quick and convenient station for those traveling from surrounding areas to downtown.

“This park and ride will continue to be a critical piece, whether this was the middle line will continue to Summerville or even beyond, folks will still have to drive to this location and park to get on the dedicated guideway,” Lowcountry Rapid Transit Project Manager, Sharon Hollis, says. “But we can get them off of Highway 26, and onto the system to perhaps maybe alleviate some congestion that way.”

The park and ride location was adjusted from the northern end line of downtown Summerville to Exchange Park.

With transit lines ending in Ladson in the current plan, some community members are asking for the routes to be extended to Summerville.

“This needs to go all the way to Summerville, this system has to work,” Best Friends of Lowcountry Transit Executive Director, William Hamilton, says. “There are 300,000 or 400,000 more people coming to our area, there is no possible way, nor is there anything close to the funds necessary to build the necessary roads.

“Congestion will become intolerable unless there are significant efforts made to take some of the burden off of the road system,” he adds.

Hollis says a lot of factors would play into an extension, including funding and demand from those in the area who would use it.

“As we start to build, transit demand from Summerville to this location, we’ll start to have the ability to do that more permanent infrastructure to put the buses and dedicated lane,” she says. “It’s a step process, and we’re just we’re a little further behind than that one.”

Back in March, the Lowcountry Rapid Transit System Project was awarded $100 million in President Biden’s 2024 budget.

“This is the very core of our community; this should remove some of the burden that is on our existing roads, but people need to understand this does not mean that the congestion we have now will disappear,” Hamilton says.

The requested federal funding represents 60% of the project cost, or about $375 million. The anticipated local funding from Charleston County represents 40% of the project cost, or about $250 million.

The Lowcountry Rapid Transit is currently at the halfway mark of the 12-year process with construction expected to begin in 2026.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.