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After pushing for various versions of the bill for months against stiff opposition from some colleagues, Sen. Clementa Pinckney, D-Ridgeland, and other supporters ran out of time in the legislative session while navigating a maze of General Assembly rules, he said.
"The bill is dead for the year," Pinckney said. "I will be working to start over next year."
The most recent version would have allowed Hardeevillle to provide incentives to developers by imposing a local-option sales tax at the 280-acre center planned to straddle Beaufort and Jasper counties at the intersection of U.S. 278 and S.C. 170.
The bill also would give Beaufort County municipalities the ability to impose local sales taxes to raise money for tourism marketing and tourism-related capital projects.
As recently as Wednesday, Pinckney said he expected lawmakers to agree on a final bill to send to Gov. Mark Sanford by session's end. On Thursday, he said the bill got stuck in the legislative process, which he likened to "sausage-making."
After working into the night Wednesday, the House adjourned without considering changes the Senate had made to the bill earlier that day.
The House is scheduled to reconvene June 29 but will only be able to consider remaining vetoes from Sanford, Pinckney said.
He said he is "disappointed, to say the least" but committed to try again next year.
The bill, which initially proposed returning tens of millions of dollars in state sales tax revenues to developers once they met job-creation and capital-investment thresholds, originally was drafted with input from an attorney representing The Sembler Co.
Sembler has said the incentives are critical to its plans to build 1.6 million square feet for Italian and American designers and national retailers. The company recently let an option to purchase most of the property lapse, citing uncertainty over the incentives.
Sembler, which owns about 40 acres of the site, has said it still wants to fulfill its full plan and continues to lobby lawmakers.
Horne Properties, the developer that owns the rest of the site, has since vowed to develop on its own. Horne would consider the local incentives but is not seeking state money.
Neither Sembler nor Horne officials could be reached for comment Thursday.
David Tigges, chairman of the Hilton Head Island Bluffton Chamber of Commerce who helped write the tourism portion of the bill, said chamber officials won't likely reassess their strategy to get more marketing money until after November's election.
