Intersection closure ‘gut punch’ to Beaufort businesses. Here’s how city responded
A last-minute change to the construction timeline of a project that will close an intersection in downtown Beaufort is being described by local business owners as a “gut punch” right before the busy holiday shopping season.
Beginning Nov. 13, Bay Street’s intersection with Charles Street will be closed for five to six weeks for a $9.7 million stormwater project, the city announced Thursday. The city and businesses are responding with a number of incentives to mitigate the construction impacts, which could not come at a worse time of year.
The closure will block direct vehicle access to the downtown area from the west and require motorists to reach downtown via marked detours. Pedestrian traffic will continue, and downtown will remain open.
City officials promised to work closely with business owners to counter the anticipated reduction in traffic. But the late notice and the timing of the closure before the holidays, when retailers typically see a surge in spending, is frustrating business owners.
“Getting a week’s notice is inexcusable,” Cherimie Weatherford, who owns women’s boutique SugarBelle, told city officials during a meeting Tuesday to update the public on the new timeline. “I’m sorry, but it is.”
Joe O’Brien, who owns the Monkey’s Uncle toy store, called the terrible timing a “gut punch.”
“We’re farmers,” O’Brien said, “and this is harvest time.”
Unexpected closure
In any city, digging up old clay lines buried 15 feet deep and replacing them with 120-inch concrete pipes would be a disruption.
But construction workers will be working in the narrow streets of Beaufort’s National Historic District to complete stormwater drainage projects planned in two downtown neighborhoods. The $16 million worth of upgrades are expected to take ten months.
The city previously announced work would begin Oct. 20 but the closure to the intersection at Bay Street at Charles, the western access to downtown, was not expected to begin before the holidays.
“We know this project has had several changes so far,” City Manager Scott Marshall told a roomful of business owners at the Tuesday meeting. “That’s not the way things we would like things to happen. And we know it’s not the way you would like things to happen. We empathize with some of the difficulties that you envision that this latest change will bring to you by opening up the intersection of Bay Street and Charles Street at a very inopportune time.”
Why the change?
The closure of Bay Street is occurring sooner than expected because of additional details engineers discovered about the complex old drainage system when they were excavating a portion of Waterfront Park, city and state officials said.
Based on the new information, project managers said the Charles-Craven Street project must begin at the Charles and Bay streets intersection near the Beaufort River, and soon. The original starting point was two blocks to the north at the intersection of Charles and Craven streets.
“It’s kind of the linchpin of the entire improvement of the entire drainage system,” Jason Hetrick of the South Carolina Office of Resilience (SCOR) said of Charles and Bay streets. “That’s why we need to get it started as soon as possible. We can’t work upstream from this intersection until we have this main conduit put in through Bay Street and into the marina parking lot.”
The storm drainage work, while federally funded, is being managed through SCOR. The state and city are facing a September 2026 deadline to finish the job or face losing the federal funding financing the work, which will address chronic flooding during king tides and storms, Hetrick said.
The city brought in state Sen. Shannon Erickson to talk to SCOR officials about delaying the start of construction. In the end, closing the intersection was necessary to complete the project on time, Erickson said.
Raul Dominguez, the city’s capital improvements program director, said pipe will be installed in small sections, then the road will be reopened, to limit the impact to the public. But changes in plans are always possible with construction projects.
“It is a living breathing organism, and with every inch that machine moves dirt,” Dominguez said. “There is always the possibility of a hiccup.”
Frustration followed by action
Business owners grilled city officials about the construction delays, the funding deadline and “dropping the ball.”
“This seems like something we had control over, and it got lost somewhere, and now we’re told at the last minute that we’re the ones getting stuck with it,” said O’Brien, the toy store owner. “This is a source of great frustration among a lot of people in this room.”
Weatherford, the SugarBelle owner, said her fourth quarter revenues are extremely important, typically paying for annual charitable giving and Christmas bonuses and raises for employees.
But business owners aren’t “sitting around licking our wounds,” she said Friday, when the initial shock had subsided somewhat.
Business groups and owners are now working around the clock on ways in which they can make this year’s holiday season better than ever, despite the road closure, Weatherford said. They’ve met with city officials to discuss marketing plans and other ideas, she said, and “we have come up with a pretty remarkable path forward.”
Weatherford credited city officials with listening to the concerns raised by business owners.
“I don’t know the city fully understands because unless you’ve created something out of absolutely nothing, it may be hard to understand what that’s like,” Weatherford said. “I will say this. I wish there were more business owners represented in our city government.”
No holiday events will be canceled, Marshall said. That includes the popular Night on the Town and the Christmas Parade. The city plans to install extensive signage to help drivers navigate alternate routes and guide pedestrians safely through the area, Marshall said. Parking will be allowed in the marina, which is close to downtown businesses.
Free parking
The city announced Friday that beginning this weekend, the marina parking lot will be open for free all-day public parking, two weeks earlier than the usual free parking period during the holiday.
In addition to the early free parking, the city is offering parking incentives.
Beginning Nov. 10 visitors can get two hours of free parking when using the ParkMobile app. The city will offer free shuttles between downtown parking areas and Bay Street beginning on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and continuing Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Special discounts and incentives for shopping with participating local merchants also are in the works.
