Update: A large apartment complex is planned behind Bluffton’s Buckwalter Place. What’s coming
Update: The Town of Bluffton’s Planning Commission voted Monday to postpone its decision on the apartment complex until its next meeting on March 24. Developer SC Bodner Co. Inc. requested an extension to submit revised development plans, said town attorney Richardson LaBruce.
A large apartment complex with over 250 units could be coming to Bluffton’s Buckwalter area.
SC Bodner Co. Inc., an Indianapolis-based development company, is proposing eight three-story apartment buildings, six one-story garage buildings, a maintenance building and a 6,500-square-foot clubhouse on 45 acres behind the town’s booming Buckwalter Place.
The apartments would be next door to the 248-unit Mystic Bluff apartment community along Bluffton Parkway.
Bluffton’s Planning Commission will consider the complex’s preliminary development plan Wednesday at 6 p.m. If the town gives final approval, the apartment complex would be the latest of a handful of big development projects planned for the area.
For years, Bluffton leaders have touted Buckwalter Place as an area ripe for development — a technology-based town center to complement the town’s new and expected growth.
The area is already home to the headquarters of health care management company eviCore, one of the town’s largest employers.
Nearby, development is underway on Technical College of the Lowcountry’s new Culinary Institute of the South behind Kroger.
And developers have proposed a miniature golf course between Publix and Station 300 at Buckwalter Place.
Prepping for the area’s influx of development, Bluffton and Beaufort County leaders are considering a controversial $2.5 million realignment of the intersection of Bluffton Parkway at Buckwalter Parkway.
Critics of the proposed realignment argue the plan would be too expensive, would harm nearby neighborhoods and would put taxpayers on the hook for improvements that nearby developers would profit from. Residents worry the project is a behind-the-scenes way of reigniting the massive 5B project that would straighten and extend Bluffton Parkway.
The apartment complex
SC Bodner Co. Inc. is proposing the apartment complex for land owned by The Reed Group, the prominent developer of local communities such as Hampton Lake, Hampton Hall and Berkeley Hall.
The 252 multi-family unit complex would have amenities similar to the ones at Mystic Bluff. They would include walking paths to Buckwalter Place, a swimming pool, 24-hour athletic club, business center, coffee bar, outdoor kitchen and grilling area, pickle ball courts, fire pit, dog park and “social outdoor space,” according to development plans.
Mike Klein, SC Bodner’s director of development, did not return a call for comment Wednesday.
If the project is approved, developers would begin construction in the third quarter of 2021 and complete the project in 20 months, according to the plans.
While based in Indianapolis, SC Bodner Company has developed apartment complexes across the country, including in Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia.
Wednesday’s planning commission meeting will be held virtually and streamed on the town’s Facebook page.
This story was originally published February 23, 2021 at 3:22 PM.
