Twin community centers coming to northern Beaufort County. Here’s where

Builders broke ground this week on two federally funded, multipurpose community centers in northern Beaufort County.

The two identical 3,400-square-foot buildings will be built at 21 Agnes Major Road in Sheldon and 179 Ball Park Road on St. Helena Island. Designed with movable walls, the centers are intended to offer flexible space to accommodate a variety of uses, from recreation to children and senior programming to possible vaccine administration in the event of another pandemic. It will take between nine and 12 months to finish building out the projects.

The centers will be named after two former Beaufort County educators: Wesley E. Felix, who taught music and was the band director at St. Helena High School before his death in 2016, and Agnes A. Major, a graduate of the Penn Normal, Industrial and Agricultural School and teacher at schools on St. Helena, Sheldon and Yemassee who died in 1996, according to local newspaper archives.

The former community center in Major’s honor became dilapidated over time, so the new building will replace it. Newspapers first mention the center around 1982.

Beaufort County set aside more than $3 million in pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act funds for the two projects back in 2024. The funds, of which the county received $37 million, were intended to help states and local governments combat the after effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding had to be allocated to projects by the end of 2024.

At first, Beaufort County Council member York Glover, who represents St. Helena Island, raised concerns that the new facility coming to his district might be too small to meet the community’s needs. It has long been the request of some St. Helena residents to have more recreational access for the island’s youth.

But as the vote progressed, it was made clear by the then-Special Assistant to the County Administrator Hank Amundson that the new buildings were being intentionally designed for “future expansion.” It is unclear what this expansion would look like, how it would be funded and when it would take place.