Upscale RV park aims to draw visitors to Port Royal, Beaufort. Here’s what’s planned
A proposal to transform a former mobile home park into a luxury RV facility aims to attract transient retirees, military families and other tourists to northern Beaufort County.
An RV park is planned off Parris Island Gateway in the town of Port Royal. The project — called Seagull Retreat in plans presented to town officials — would include 50 slips for nightly rentals up to 28 days, an amenity center with showers and clothes washers and dryers and a dog park.
RV travel has become popular for retirees who travel more than half of the year, a project representative said this week. Many of the new parks and campgrounds pop up along Interstate 95. The Port Royal proposal seeks to bring travelers in to experience the community.
The trend for mobile accommodations has been up in recent years and fueled more with the coronavirus pandemic, said landscape architect and project representative Michael Brock in a presentation to Port Royal officials this week.
“Sales, rentals, reservations for campgrounds are skyrocketing — up to 650 percent in some areas,” Brock said. “The movement is people want to travel, but they want to travel safely.”
Port Royal Town Council will consider changing its code to allow campgrounds as a special use for the property’s zoning.
Council members voiced support for the project Wednesday, saying similar parks have been tastefully developed and that RV pads would be an improvement to the mobile homes that once dotted the 4.92-acre parcel.
The maximum stay for RVs would be 28 days and 14 days for tent camping. The slips would average $80 per night, Brock said.
Brock said he designed the site in a similar way to the upscale RV resort under construction at Hilton Head National in Bluffton, though that is a much larger project, with hundreds of slips.
The Shell Point area where the town of Port Royal has annexed property continues to grow.
A new high-end apartment community is nearing completion not far from the proposed RV site on Parris Island Gateway.
On Savannah Highway, new homes are being built in the Shell Point Farm community. A luxury apartment complex is also being completed, and new storage facilities have popped up in recent years.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the size of the property where the RV park is proposed. It is 4.92 acres.
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 1:14 PM.
