Jewelry stores in Nexton, SC

SUMMERVILLE – After a decade of playing professional ice hockey, Hunter Bishop wasn’t sure what the next chapter of his life would be.

Getting into the meat and deli business certainly wasn’t at the top of Bishop’s post-hockey occupational list.

Bishop, a former S.C. Stingrays hockey player, and business partner Devin Kelly opened a New York Butcher Shoppe at 502 Nexton Square Drive in Nexton Square off U.S. Highway 17A on Sept. 18.

“Five years ago, if someone had told me I was getting into the meat and deli business I would have thought they were out of their minds,” said Bishop, who played for the Stingrays during the 2012-13 season. “This is definitely different from going to the gym and hitting the ice, but we are super excited to be in Nexton.”

Kelly’s family had been involved in the fast-food industry with Kentucky Fried Chicken, so the transition came natural for him.

“Devin has been looking for the right franchise concept to dive into and the New York Butcher Shoppe seemed like an ideal opportunity,” Bishop said. “With his KFC background, I think this was an easy an easy decision for him.”

In addition to select cuts of beef, chicken, pork, veal and lamb, the shop will offer prepared dishes along with a selection of wines and specialty items such as cheeses, exotic sausages and international groceries.

“I know that a lot of families started to cook more from home during COVID,” Bishop said. “We have a three-headed monster with the meats and seafood, the fresh prepared meals and then the wine and craft beer. This isn’t an ordinary butcher shop, it’s a one-stop shopping experience for people that want to plan their meals for the week.”

The New York Butcher Shoppe chain has nine locations in South Carolina, including three in its home base of Greenville. Others are on Daniel Island and the Isle of Palms and in Mount Pleasant, Columbia and Indian Land near Charlotte.

The Mount Pleasant shop is the original location, Kelly said.

Seven others are located in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. The duo plans to open a new store in Savannah in the coming year.

“The corporate folks already had a lease in Nexton, so when we took over, we bought a territory down in Savannah,” Bishop said.

The butcher shop will be the 15th food-and-beverage venue to open in and around Nexton Square. Other restaurants in the shopping center include Halls Chophouse, Taco Boy and D’Allesandro’s Pizza.

“Nexton is a booming area that’s only going to keep growing,” Bishop said. “It’s the perfect spot for this concept.”

The shop will be open 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays.

A new Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant opened its doors in Nexton’s North Creek neighborhood, which is just outside the Cane Bay Plantation entrance on Sept. 17.

The Buffalo Wild Wings, which is located at 117 North Creek Drive is a new Center Stage Buffalo Wild Wings design with state-of-the-art video displays to watch your favorite sports teams.

The restaurant will offer its trademark chicken wings and 26 signature sauces and seasoning options, plus other fan favorites including burgers, chicken sandwiches and bevy of appetizers.

The new location will employ more than 100 full-time and part-time workers.

Buffalo Wild Wings will be open 11 a.m. – 11 p.m., Sunday-Wednesday and 11 a.m. – midnight Thursday-Saturday.

The Columbus, Ohio-based Buffalo Wild Wings, which was founded in 1982, is the largest sports bar brand in the United States with more than 1,300 locations in 10 countries.

By the numbers

A new Mathnasium has opened up in Nexton Square.

Mathnasium is an international learning franchise with in-person and online math tutoring to help kids learn math through lessons and tutorials for grades K-12. It’s located at 500 Nexton Square Drive.

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) - The Nexton community in Summerville is planning to grow in 2021.

The master-planned community has already brought new homes, restaurants, hotels, and businesses to the I-26 corridor.

Nexton’s Vice President of Operations, Brent Gibadlo, says they are creating a community environment where individuals can thrive.

“By making a genuine effort to understand the market and recognizing Nexton’s unique opportunity to positively impact our customers, we have created an ergonomic community plan that applies thoughtful architecture, innovative design and social responsibility in order to optimize human well-being,” Gibadlo said.

Work is expected to begin on more than 500 new homes in Nexton within the next year. Developers hope that some of these homes will be completed by the Summer of 2022.

Developers say the first 250 homes in the Midtown development phase of Nexton are expected to be delivered in 2021.

The Lou Hammond Group says the Birmingham, Alabama-based Capstone Communities recently announced the introduction of 282 single-family, for-rent homes at Nexton. These rental homes are scheduled to be delivered in late 2021 and be completed in the Summer of 2022.

Another 100 lots by TrueHomes are planned for the North Creek neighborhood this year as well.

In February, the Lou Hammond Group says they plan to see the groundbreaking of the Midtown Club. It’s a swim and fitness center that will serve the Nexton Residential Association.

A full-service First Citizens Bank branch is expected to open at Nexton in late 2021. Construction recently began in January on the new bank.

Developers are also planning to break ground on “Downtown Nexton” this year. The downtown area of Nexton will be separate from the existing Nexton Square, where events like the Sounds on the Square have taken place. However, Downtown Nexton is expected to be located within walking distance of Nexton Sqaure.

Downtown Nexton is planned to be 100-acres and come between Brighton Park Boulevard and Sigma Drive.

More specifics will be shared soon on the downtown area, but initial plans show it will have a new gas station and offer multifamily community opportunities.

Copyright 2021 WCSC. All rights reserved.

The company that’s building out a master-planned community in Berkeley County that’s as large as the Charleston peninsula is set to come under new ownership.

California-based Brookfield Residential announced this week that it is acquiring Newland, the developer of the 5,000-acre mixed-use Nexton neighborhood between Interstate 26 and U.S. Highway 176 near Summerville.

The sale of San Diego-based Newland, which is involved in 20 large master-planned projects around the country, is expected to be finalized June 1.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

A Nexton spokeswoman declined to comment on the pending sale.

“No major, significant operational changes are expected,” said Brookfield spokeswoman Krista Ellingson.

She said the company’s specialty is supplying homes and lots in constrained real estate markets such as Charleston, where a scarcity of homes on the market has dropped to less than a one-month supply, triggering bidding wars and pushing up prices.

“We just aren’t a homebuilder, we invest in land to build homes and sell to homebuilders,” Ellingson said. “We want to show our partners that we are in it with them.”

Bob McLeod, Newland’s executive chairman, said the Brookfield deal “will provide more opportunities for the continued development of additional mixed-use masterplans well into the future as well as give us significant additional vertical development opportunities.”

As of this week, Nexton has 1,266 occupied single-family homes in four subdivisions — Brighton Park, Del Webb, Midtown and North Creek. About 200 more are under development within the neighborhoods.

Nexton also has about 900 finished apartments in three complexes, with another 600 rental units on the way.

When build-out is completed in about 10 years, Nexton will have about 7,000 residences with about 17,500 residents. That will make it roughly equal to the current populations of Moncks Corner and Georgetown combined.

Brookfield Residential currently has no real estate operations in the Palmetto State. The Newland acquisition will expand its footprint to eight new markets, including Charleston, Raleigh-Durham and Wilmington in the Carolinas, and five other areas where both companies have projects in the works.

Last year, Brookfield’s revenue from home and land sales was $1.74 billion, about $200 million less than in 2019, mainly because of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the company’s annual report.

During the first three months of 2021, total revenue topped $444 million, about 30 percent more than the first quarter last year, when the coronavirus began to spread throughout the overall economy.

Costa Mesa, Calif.-based Brookfield Residential is part of Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management, which oversees investment totaling $600 billion and is headquartered in Toronto.

Newland oversees the development of the Nexton tract for North America Sekisui House LLC. NASH, a subsidiary of Japan’s largest homebuilder, bought the property in 2017 from paper maker WestRock Co.’s former real estate division for $90 million.

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - The Nexton community in Summerville continues to see new growth right off of I-26 and Highway 17A.

Nexton Vice President of Operations Brent Gibadlo says the community can expect to see new restaurants, parks, employments opportunities, offices, and a variety of homes coming in the next few years.

“Nexton is already in a really great location, right off of I-26, so it’s very accessible. I think the other thing is a lot of employment here,” Gibadlo said. “So, this isn’t really just about homes, it’s a lot about businesses. So, it’s this idea of integrating where people work and where people live and getting those things more inter-connected.”

The Midtown area of Nexton opened about six months ago and currently has about 100 homes on site, but within the next 10 to 15 years, Gibadlo says they plan to have around 3,000 homes there.

“I think that’s the biggest thing that we’re trying to do at Midtown Nexton is offer housing options across the board,” Gibadlo. “So whether you’re a young person looking to buy your first home or you’re an empty nester looking to downsize, and everything in between.”

Gibadlo says the Midtown space will have apartments, townhomes, and individual houses. They also just broke ground on the Midtown Club which will have a resort pool, lap pools, exercise facilities, and other amenities.

Downtown Nexton is expected to break ground later this year. It will be separate from the existing Nexton Square with restaurants, stores, and offices. It will be about 100 acres along Sigma Drive. Gibadlo says it will have hotels and apartments in a more urban and city-like area of the community.

He says he’s excited for Nexton to also become a health and wellness hub for the area. That includes new offices already and the anticipation of a MUSC Community Hospital expected to open in 2022.

Gibadlo also says they realize the growth of this area may not seem beneficial for everyone.

“You know, it’s very fair for folks to have concerns about growth. What we always think about is we want to make sure that there’s far more positives than negatives associated with growth,” Gibadlo said. “So I think first it starts with a good, thoughtful master plan. And that’s one thing that we’re lucky in the case of Nexton. This is a plan that’s been in the works now for over 10 years.”

He adds that Nexton has a master plan for the road networks and stormwater plans that come with the rapid growth here.

Copyright 2021 WCSC. All rights reserved.

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SUMMERVILLE — A pair of Mount Pleasant real estate investors has paid nearly $10 million for about 70 acres along North Maple Street and Old Dairy Road in Summerville where a mixed-use development of commercial and residential buildings is in the works not far from the new Nexton Parkway interchange on Interstate 26.

Thomas Massey, of SUP Real Estate, and business partner Jason Ray, through an affiliate called CVEA Summerville I LLC, bought four different parcels in the area since September 2020 from different landowners. They also have a nearly 3-acre parcel under contract. The initials CVEA stand for the first letters of each of Ray’s four children.

The property sits just inside the Dorchester County line. Just over 50 acres were annexed into the town last year under a mixed-use classification that allows a variety of structures, including retail, offices, single-family homes and apartments.

Commercial real estate firm NAI Charleston recently represented the seller of a 21-acre parcel that was annexed into the town in 2014 and will be incorporated into the master-planned development. That tract straddles Maple Street and abuts Robyn Wynn subdivision to the east.

The property sits along the beginning of Maple Street’s four lanes leading to Interstate 26, and the investors intend to see it developed correctly.

“We are trying to do something nice and not have a strip mall after strip mall,” Massey said.

Once all the property is acquired, he said a development plan for commercial buildings along the road and a mix of residential uses will be presented to the town for its review in the spring.

Ray said he has been working to put the project together since 2018 and, with Massey’s help, started acquiring the parcels last fall.

He said land contracts took a while to negotiate and then the coronavirus set the project back as well, but he and Massey are now ready to move forward.

Ray said the project is being put together locally, which means he and Massey have a vested interest in making sure it’s in good taste.

“Our priority is to do things the right way and to listen to the people,” Ray said. “I feel like if we start there, everyone wins in the end. ... We are not just going to develop it and leave town.”

The next step is to get engineering work done for water, sewer and drainage before the project goes to the town’s Design Review Board for consideration.

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The Morris, a 115,000-square-foot complex with a main three-story building, a two-story structure and a five-tier parking deck, is expected to be completed by late spring 2022 on Morrison Drive.

Also, an eight-story, 325-unit apartment project with ground-floor retail space and two pools is proposed for 295 Calhoun St. across from Charleston’s medical district.

48.4: Millions of dollars paid for the new five-story Portside office building near the Ravenel Bridge in Mount Pleasant.

2,105: Square footage of new Chipotle Mexican Grill opening soon in West Ashley.

37,000: Square footage of the former Stein Mart in West Ashley where a new national retailer will set up a second Charleston-area store.

+ Renters relief: Ban on evictions a lifeline during pandemic but financial help lags.

+ Limiting development: Mount Pleasant adds new restrictions on building density and height, a move many believe further contributes to the region’s sprawl and prices people out of the market.

+ Dusty dollars: The popular History Channel show “American Pickers” is returning to South Carolina and wants to see the old stuff people have tucked away in barns and sheds.

Built around 1853-54, the two-story building that once housed a bank, law office and more recently a restaurant and bar at 141 East Bay St. in the downtown area is getting a makeover to become a new event space.

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