We Buy Estate Jewelry in Mount Pleasant, SC

An Atlanta-based merchant is laying down plans for a second big-box store in the Charleston area.

Floor & Decor is eyeing a site at 2233 U.S. Highway 17 next to Home Depot in Mount Pleasant to build a 64,450-square-foot retail outlet.

The building is slated for roughly 8 acres on the back portion of a parcel that formerly housed longtime dive bar Richard's, which was demolished last year, and a small office building. A Spinx gas station and convenience store is going on the front of the tract.

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Floor & Decor's East Cooper expansion is making its way through the town's approval process. A company representative did not immediately respond for comment.

The flooring merchant opened its first South Carolina store on Rivers Avenue in North Charleston in 2019.

Publicly traded Floor & Decor operates 203 warehouse stores and five design studios across 36 states, including other Palmetto State locations in Columbia and Greenville.

Opening soon

An Ohio-based restaurant chain is just a few days away from opening a new venue in the Lowcountry, its second in South Carolina.

Condado Tacos will open at 11 a.m. Nov. 4 at 1712 Towne Centre Way next to Lenscrafters in Mount Pleasant Towne Centre.

The first 100 people in line who enter the doors on opening day will win a "Year of Yum," or free tacos for a year.

The restaurant will be open 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m.-midnight Friday and Saturday. Happy hour is 3-6 p.m. weekdays, offering $5 margaritas, $1 off tacos and other food and drink specials.

Condado Tacos has one other restaurant in South Carolina. The Greenville location on Woodruff Road opened earlier this year. The company has 45 locations in nine states across the South, Midwest and Northeast.

(Note: Condado Tacos changed the opening date twice before settling on Nov. 4. This story has been updated to reflect the latest change.)

New tenants

A Mount Pleasant retail site where a proposal has been in the works to redevelop a former grocery store recently landed four new tenants.

Dear Lucy Shoes, The Works Cycle, facial bar Clean Your Dirty Face and Findings Boutique joined Oyster Park Shopping Center at 1400-1421 Shucker Circle and 1440 Ben Sawyer Blvd.

Tim Rowley of the commercial real estate firm Coldwell Banker Commercial Atlantic represented the landlord, an affiliate of Atlanta-based Dewberry Capital.

The property owner presented plans to the town in 2021 to transform the long-vacant former Bi-Lo grocery store building into office and retail space. Oyster Park already includes a 269-unit apartment development.

Rowley also represented Paragano Associates of Mount Pleasant, the owner of the redeveloped Montague Corners Shopping Center at 5060 Dorchester Road in North Charleston in several leases.

Among the tenants are Latin fusion restaurant El Callao, Silver Crowne Liquors, sports bar Whiskey Run Grill, Sticky Fingers Rib House, Kanji Sushi & Hibachi restaurant, 540 Vape, Platia Greek Goodness dining spot and The Montague Room, an upscale steak and martini lounge.

Tell me about your professional background and how you feel it makes you a good fit to be a council member.

I've been teaching in Charleston County since 2016. This is my 24th year teaching. The local aspect of teaching, most of my career has been in teaching elementary school, but still the local aspect of working in the community where I live has always been something that I really like. Now I'm in North Charleston, so it's the greater community where I live. I think this is a theme of why I've chosen to run for Town Council because I would like to see Mount Pleasant make its own decisions on a local level and be responsible for them and with citizens participating in the process. I lived in France for seven years and I have a Bachelor of Science in French and psychology and a master's degree in educational technology. I've just always been part of the local community and have worked well with others.

What do you feel is the biggest issue facing the town today, and what plans do you have to address this?

I have a daughter, a six-year-old, and we went to James Island yesterday to go rock climbing in James Island County Park. I would like to see the green spaces improved in Mount Pleasant to make it something where travelers don't have to go across town to go to the (County) Park. I know that there’s a bike path in … Laurel Hill County Park and just a dirt road going in a half-mile circle and there are things that we can put back there that would be places you can take your kids and take your family.

The other thing is I think that health all across the United States is a problem. We pay more for healthcare. We have more healthcare issues related to obesity and diet. I would like to be somebody who spreads the message of healthy eating and healthy lifestyles lead to better lives. We have a great little local market there at Boone Hall...we have the Farmers Market on Tuesday and Boone Hall is open the rest of the week.

The results of the Public Input Matters survey found that throughout all seven districts in town, respondents feel that traffic in Mount Pleasant needs to be improved. What are some concrete solutions that you feel can address this?

The traffic in Mount Pleasant and housing in Mount Pleasant — I don’t know if ‘victims of our own success’ is the right word for it. We have a very unique geography here. We are a virtual island in that there's no shortcuts. There's one way in and one way out. You may come across I-526 or I-26 or you go north towards McClellanville and Georgetown up (Highway) 41. There just isn't room.

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I know that the Town Council has a plan and they've already hired a company to look into certain traffic solutions. As a new council member, I'm not sure if I would be able to offer anything different to what they have already decided on.

Another area Public Input Matters survey takers responded to was housing availability. Forty-one percent of respondents felt that affordable housing options should be increased. How do you feel this can be accomplished?

I think it speaks well to the people in Mount Pleasant that we want things for people like affordable housing, but whether or not there is a feasible solution to providing that affordable housing — where are we going to put affordable housing? It makes sense that people want affordable housing but do they want the affordable housing in their backyard?

I want to live locally, I want to buy locally, want to shop locally, but we can't escape the fact that a lot of our local decisions are made on a state and national and global level. How does Mount Pleasant make affordable housing when the interest rates are 7.75 percent? There are things happening on a national level that we just can't control that can make our job of creating affordable housing next to impossible.

Is there anyone who has served as a role model to you, either from politics, past experiences or family members, that you look to and consider while you run for office?

One thing my dad always taught us was sometimes doing the right thing is the hardest thing to do, but you can take solace in the fact that it's the right thing to do. I am a part owner of a restaurant in Washington, D.C. with my brother Eric and when Washington D.C. decided to impose the vaccine mandate on restaurants … we were the only restaurant in Washington, D.C. to actively say no, we're not going to check people's health papers. It was very hard on my brother to do that, and he's such a big part of the local community. What I just really admired was his courage and even though it financially wasn't the best decision. Financially, it wasn't a great decision, but it was the right decision to make and his principles are something that I truly admire and I try to follow that example in my own life.

Mount Pleasant seems certain to extend its moratorium on new apartments yet again. This needs to be the last time — and it needs to be lifted as soon as the town's new zoning regulations are in place.

We agree with Mayor Will Haynie, who has supported these moratoriums while also acknowledging that they represent a sort of failure of local government. Specifically, they reflect a failure of earlier town leaders to ensure that new apartments are built in the right place and with the necessary public infrastructure to support them — and to minimize any negative impacts on existing residents.

But the moratorium also reflects a failure of Town Council to consider those who work in the town and who want to live there but cannot afford to. While the vast majority of Mount Pleasant residents moved to the town, they have supported political candidates who have vowed to make it increasingly difficult and costly for others to do the same. The moratorium has limited new construction and housing supply, helping to drive up both home prices and rental rates. This needs to change.

Almost a decade ago, new apartment projects bothered town voters enough to create a political backlash that ushered in a wave of new council members and, in 2017, the first moratorium on apartments. Since then, the town has regularly renewed the ban, and it worked gradually to revise its comprehensive plan and currently is working to update its zoning and land use regulations to match that plan. The work is expected to finish up in less than a year, after which the moratorium should cease.

It's not just about the need to build more housing; trying to extend it any longer could result in a costly lawsuit for the town. "We knew all along that if we got challenged in court, it would be an uphill battle for us to win," Mr. Haynie tells us. "You have to tie it (the moratorium) to some future occurrence. You can’t just put a moratorium on apartments because we don’t like them." In fact, Mount Pleasant's approximately 8-year-long apartment moratorium might have set a South Carolina record.

Town Council should urge its staff to prioritize updating the code; we see no reason it shouldn't be approved by late summer. Even after the moratorium expires, developers still will see new limits on certain types of residential projects under the town’s building permit allocation system, which limits the number of permits available for single-family housing and multifamily housing developments for several more years. But if Town Council gets this code rewrite right, it also should consider lifting or loosening those permit caps.

Congested roads and overcrowded schools and the loss of forestland and open space have driven these anti-growth measures, but the lack of affordable housing — particularly for those who work in Mount Pleasant's schools, fire stations, hospitals and businesses — is emerging as an equal or even greater concern. And these problems are interrelated: The more people there are who have to commute to Mount Pleasant from Goose Creek, Summerville, Moncks Corner and elsewhere, the worse the traffic.

One thing the town has gotten right is its exemption of multifamily projects with an affordable component from the moratorium. But that has not been enough, particularly as Mount Pleasant has not subsidized such projects to nearly the degree that Charleston has.

The growing problem of too little affordable housing is not a problem only in Mount Pleasant; it's a regional problem. But it's a problem every government in our region must do what it can to solve.

If you’re dreaming of a white Christmas, you’ve come to the wrong place. It’s not likely that snow will be in our forecast for the holidays, but in these days of wacky weather, you never can tell. We’ve had our share of sunny and warm Christmas days here in the Lowcountry, but there have also been a few harbingers thrown in. In 2018, just after the holidays ended – and two days after the new year was ushered in with temperatures in the 70s – the year started out with more than 5 inches of snow, the third highest amount ever recorded here. The snowfall was followed by nearly a week of below-freezing temperatures and highs reaching only into the teens. Drivers were warned to stay off the roads due to the hazardous icy conditions, but several fatalities occurred when people attempted to simply walk on the ice.

Another bizarre winter storm that many long-time locals remember is the 1989 snowstorm, which happened just three months after Hurricane Hugo wreaked havoc. That one did give us a white Christmas – and even provided a bit of Christmas magic by covering up the mounds of debris and devastation that the hurricane had left behind. Eight inches of snow fell from the evening of Dec. 22 to the 23 and stayed around through Christmas Day.

But even without snow in the mix, there have been terrible ice storms when sleet and freezing rain has chilled the Lowcountry to the core, like in January 2011 when icicles draped live oak and palm trees as well as power lines. That meant many folks lost electricity when those power lines came crashing down—which made things pretty miserable since it meant that many homes had no heat. Along the coast, nearly an inch of ice accumulated. Three years later, the Lowcountry was hit with two consecutive ice storms – one in January and an even more severe one just weeks later which brought a third of an inch of freezing rain. That one forced the authorities to close the Ravenel Bridge when giant icicles hung on the bridge’s cables and later fell onto unsuspecting vehicles.

Even though such occurrences might (thankfully) be the exception rather than the norm for our area, early European settlers in the Lowcountry found that their new home would have its trials and tribulations during the winter. A local newspaper, the South Carolina Gazette, reported on Jan. 2, 1737, that frozen ponds and creeks were covered with a layer of ice 3 inches thick.

But winter storms don’t confine themselves to January, often considered the coldest month of the year. On Feb. 12, 1899, a severe blizzard blasted most of the Southeast, including the Lowcountry. Temperatures here plummeted to 7 degrees F and 4 inches of snow blanketed our area. Another February storm occurred in 1934. Lowcountry resident Yvonne Kanapaux said her parents got married on Feb. 10 during that ice storm. She remembered being told that her father had always jokingly predicted that “it would be a cold day in hell when he got married!” And February 1973 brought a record snowfall of 7 inches. Some locals seized that opportunity to use the old Cooper River Bridge as a ski slope.

The winter of 1784 proved to be a particularly bizarre set of weather anomalies. Due to the El Nino effect ushering in unusually cold temperatures to eastern North America coupled with the effects of an atmospheric low caused by a volcanic eruption in Iceland, frigid water temperatures froze up Charleston Harbor. It was reported at the time that some daring local residents ice skated on the surface of the harbor. Hard to imagine, but fact or fiction, it does allude to an extreme weather event.

Snow and icicles adorning the Palmetto State’s namesake trees might make for an interesting holiday photo replacing the iconic images of snow that appear on commercially produced Christmas cards – scenes that Lowcountry residents have never been able to relate to anyway. But when Old Man Winter pays a visit to our area, it’s not exactly picture-perfect. So this holiday season, just be careful what you wish for!

By Mary Coy

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CHARLESTON, S.C. – Raymond Scott learned a long time ago that you don’t always have to be the person in charge to be a leader.

This December, the 76-year-old Mount Pleasant native celebrated 55 years of service with Dominion Energy.

“I learned to keep moving and stay happy and everything else will take care of itself,” Scott said. “I wake up feeling good every day, and I’m thankful for my health and my ability to work.”

Scott grew up in Mount Pleasant, a few blocks from his workplace at the Dominion Energy facility on Chuck Dawley Boulevard, a local operations hub that has served the community for decades.

He spent two years in the Army and served in Vietnam. When he returned home to the Lowcountry, he immediately began looking for a job to help support his family. He heard from a friend that South Carolina Electric and Gas was hiring, so went to the Charleston location on Meeting Street and applied in person. The manager said they only had one position available, and it was in the warehouse. He took it.

“I was determined to make the best out of it,” he said.

True to his word, Scott held multiple positions in electric and gas operations during his years with the company. Currently, working as a senior material handler for the Mount Pleasant, West Ashley and Hollywood locations, he is responsible for maintaining the inventory and equipment necessary to keep the lights on for thousands of customers in the East Cooper region and beyond.

To commemorate his more than five decades of dedicated service to the company, its customers and his community, Dominion Energy South Carolina President Keller Kissam officially declared Dec. 4, 2023, as Raymond Scott Day.

“Raymond is a natural born leader who is known for mentoring others and rising to the occasion,” Kissam said. “We appreciate the example he sets for all of us.”

And while he admits his 55 years haven’t always been easy, he is thankful for the wisdom and talent of his friends and colleagues.

“I love my job. I feel privileged to work with them every day,” he added.

Scott also says he has no plans to retire. “I basically live one day at a time, making the best of every moment, and bringing as much joy to others as I can. That’s my motivation,” he said with a smile. “My promise is not to be here beyond 90 years old.”

About Dominion Energy About 7 million customers in 15 states energize their homes and businesses with electricity or natural gas from Dominion Energy (NYSE: D), headquartered in Richmond, Va. The company is committed to providing reliable, affordable, and increasingly clean energy every day and to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050. Please visit DominionEnergy.com to learn more.