Town says Port of Port Royal developers are in breach of agreement, offer few details
A group working to redevelop a former state port property in Port Royal is behind schedule on a contractual agreement with the town, its leaders say, but public officials have been largely silent on the reason.
The town says Grey Ghost Properties is in breach of a five-year agreement that outlines milestones for redeveloping the 51 acres of high ground and another 266 acres of tidal marsh on Battery Creek adjacent to the town’s walkable Old Village. The group bought the property from the state in 2017 after more than a decade of wrangling, with plans for possible restaurants, homes, a hotel and marina.
Town Council voted Oct. 14 to direct town manager Van Willis to write a letter notifying the developers they are in breach of the development agreement. After initially saying the letter would be provided after it was delivered later that week, Willis did not respond to requests for a copy before Thursday.
He said Thursday he would provide the letter but had not by press time. A request related to the letter under the S.C. Freedom of Information Act last week had not been formally acknowledged as of Thursday.
Update: The town sent a copy of the letter late Thursday afternoon which will be reported separately.
A statement from the town after the council vote did not specify how town leaders feel Grey Ghost is in breach of the document other than being behind schedule.
“The Town has concerns about the pace of development,” the statement said. “Since we are within two years of the expiration of the five year development agreement, the Council has an obligation to protect the interest of the Town and its citizens. We want to ensure the timely redevelopment of the Port of Port Royal per the development agreement and planned unit development.”
Phone messages for Grey Ghost representatives Chris Butler and Whit Suber weren’t immediately returned Thursday. Port Royal Mayor Joe DeVito had previously directed a reporter’s questions to the letter.
Grey Ghost Properties bought the property for $9 million in a public auction. Developers have since facilitated a new waterfront seafood restaurant at Fishcamp at 11th Street, reopened a long-vacant drystack boat storage building and a sales office for Butler Marine and Salt Marsh Brewing plans a restaurant, brewery and tap room on Battery Creek. They’ve also submitted plans to the town for a residential neighborhood as part of a planned unit development on the north end of the property.
During the pandemic, the group has hosted an outdoor community beer garden on the bluff overlooking the water off 13th Street, with Salt Marsh brews on tap, food delivered to individual tables and live music.
Willis said the town had not received a formal response from developers but that the request was achievable within the period the town specified in the letter.
“I don’t think there’s anything in that letter that is too onerous,” Willis said Thursday. “As a municipality, those are things we expected to happen per the development agreement, and I think they can done be very easily.”
The updated development agreement was approved in August 2017 and includes provisions for how insurance money from a seafood market fire in 2015 should be spent and timelines for implementing public park space and beautifying the massive drystack building with agreed-upon landscaping.
The document anticipates that during first years of the agreement, developers resume operating the drystack, begin building infrastructure, market individual property for sale and begin building required park space and a boardwalk. And from 2019-2022, as much as half of the specified land uses should be under development and the parks and boardwalk complete and transferred to the town.
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 5:27 PM.
