Beaufort Commerce Park's outdated sign attracts scorn instead of tenants

Nearly two and a half years after purchasing the Beaufort Commerce Park for $1.85 million, little has changed on the 209-acre property.

That includes outdated signs listing phone numbers that have been disconnected and a URL to a website with text written in Japanese, according to a Google translation.

Mayor Billy Keyserling calls the signs "embarrassing" and said they should have been updated long ago.

"The city manager has been asked many times to change that and he hasn't," Keyserling said.

City manager Scott Dadson said the sign problems have been discussed, but he hadn't been directly told by City Council to change anything.

Dadson said the phone number on the large Beaufort Commerce Park sign on U.S. 21 was removed a while ago. He's been working with the Lowcountry Economic Alliance, a nonprofit group that handles business recruitment for the city and other local governments, on getting estimates to redo that sign.

Smaller signs elsewhere on the property remain, however.

"The ones back in there, I just hadn't thought about those," he said.

The signs have become a campaign issue among candidates for two vacant City Council seats that will be filled in the Nov. 4 election. At a forum this month, challenger Phil Cromer quipped that the current marketing strategy for the park is "befuddling."

"I don't know about you, but I can't read Mandarin," he said. "And the phone number is disconnected. So that's not good from a marketing perspective."

Candidate Stephen Murray also noted the outdated sign when describing what he would do to attract tenants to the property.

"I've got a nine-step plan. It starts with Bush Hogging the lot, make it look nice, change the Mandarin website, fix the disconnected phone number," he said to laughter from the audience.

Dadson said he intends to speak with public works director Isiah Smalls this week, and the sign project will likely be tackled this winter.

"The big question is, who is responsible?" Dadson said. "(The LEA is) our economic development group, but we own it and are (responsible) as well."

Changing the signs is on the city's to-do list, but stormwater drainage and flooding are more immediate concerns and higher priorities, Keyserling said.

"The signs aren't that important, but, quite frankly, the numbers should be correct if they are there," he said.

Dadson said the signs would likely be redone to include the phone number for City Hall.

Attempts to contact Lowcountry Economic Alliance executive director Kim Statler for comment were unsuccessful.

The Lowcountry Economic Network -- a precursor of the alliance and also led by Statler -- once owned the park. However, when the property went into foreclosure and Beaufort County Council refused to purchase it, the network declared bankruptcy and went out of business. The city subsequently bought the land and is partnering with the alliance to try to attract businesses there.

Currently, the Lowcountry Economic Alliance website contains listings for 12 parcels in the commerce park. In September, Statler suggested in a presentation to County Council that $16.8 million in infrastructure improvements are needed on the property.

Statler has also suggested purchasing 49 neighboring acres for about $23.4 million and adding them to the park. Funding for the purchase were to be put before voters as part of a bond referendum, which County Council ultimately did not approve.

The city is spending about $200,000 on principal and interest payments on the park this year. The amount increases incrementally to just under $220,000 in 2022.

Follow reporter Erin Moody at twitter.com/IPBG_Erin.

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Beaufort council discusses ways to entice tenants to commerce park

This story was originally published October 18, 2014 at 5:52 PM with the headline " Beaufort Commerce Park's outdated sign attracts scorn instead of tenants."