Development begins on large marketplace, music venue along Bluffton’s Buckwalter Parkway
A controversial marketplace and music venue planned along Buckwalter Parkway has received final approval from the town of Bluffton, and developers started preliminary site work this week on the vacant lot in front of the Woodbridge neighborhood.
May River Marketplace — with a restaurant, shops, parking lot and music pavilion — is expected to be finished in early-to-mid 2023, according to the development company Loftin-Moore.
The project, which had received push-back from nearby residents and even some Planning Commission members, was granted official approval by Bluffton staff late last month after receiving preliminary agreement from the town’s planning commission and development review committee earlier this year.
It will rise in a part of Bluffton bustling with new growth: near Woodbridge and the condos at The Reserve at Woodbridge, and across the street from the ongoing 35-acre Washington Square project and Lowcountry Fresh Market & Cafe.
Kelly Little, principal at Loftin-Moore, in an email to a reporter, described the project as an “Eatery, Mercantile, and Social Hub.”
She said the marketplace will include dining and shopping spots as well as a gathering place for families and friends.
“We are pleased with the recent approval of our project development plan and are evaluating the project timeline as a result of the approval,” she said.
Nearby residents are not as pleased — particularly some in the Woodbridge neighborhood, which would directly abut the project.
Some say, as they have said for months, that they had been shut out of the planning process. They worry about the sound levels that will boom from the music venue, as well as the project’s effect on traffic and drainage in their middle-class neighborhood.
“People are so angry,” said Woodbridge resident Kimberly Hart. “Where else do you see commercial development going outside people’s front doors?
“The town has no respect for any of the natural beauty of Bluffton anymore. If it doesn’t involve Old Town Bluffton, they don’t care.”
What’s coming?
May River Marketplace’s final development plan, reviewed by reporters, calls for a 45,400-square-foot building and a 279-space parking lot on 7.9 acres.
The development company’s website described the marketplace as a “gathering place” where food lovers and artisans can meet.
It will be “home to day and night designer and boutique shops and services, mouth-watering restaurants and breweries, delicious produce stands, dynamic office spaces as well as an inspiring line-up of festivals, productions and other events,” the website said.
Bluffton Director of Growth Management Kevin Icard, reached by phone last week, said construction can start on the “horizontal” parts of the marketplace, including the parking lot, detention ponds and utilities.
Loftin-Moore will have to submit building permits to the town’s chief building official before the “vertical” construction can start, he said.
How did we get here?
The marketplace, and its proximity to homes along bustling Buckwalter Parkway, has been criticized since plans were first introduced in 2020 — criticism that amplified throughout the development’s approval process.
Woodbridge POA President Dave Smith, in a March letter opposing the development, said it would be detrimental to his neighborhood — a community of “average, middle class people.”
Smith’s letter cited five reasons for his opposition: traffic created by the development; a requirement that Woodbridge must maintain the neighborhood’s entrance; water run-off and drainage issues; and, the large, commercial look of the project.
Bluffton’s planning commission, which had also expressed some worries about the project, had previously asked the development company for a letter of community support and a sound impact study. It also added a requirement that the project’s final development plan be presented to the commission for final approval.
At the next meeting, after convening for an hour in executive session, the commission removed the request for a letter of support and the requirement for a follow-up meeting.
Although attorney Richardson LaBruce had informed the commission that it did not have the authority to require the letter of support, residents were incensed by the decision.
“We felt like Bluffton did stuff in the backroom without the residents knowing, and then changed the rules when it looked like it was not going a direction the developer wanted,” Hart, the Woodbridge resident, told a reporter after the meeting.
On Nov. 29, seven months after the planning commission meeting, Bluffton’s staff gave final approval to the project.
This story was originally published December 16, 2021 at 4:30 AM.
