Along busy St. Helena road, battle brewing between sidewalks and historic oak trees
A Beaufort County plan to build a 5-foot-wide sidewalk along a stretch of St. Helena Island’s Martin Luther King Jr. Drive using sales tax funds is prompting questions from Penn Center officials who are concerned that the possible removal of Spanish Moss-covered live oak trees could harm the center’s historic designation.
For their part, county officials say it’s too early in the process to know how many trees will need to be removed. If some are, they add, great care will be taken to minimize the impact.
The $1.5 million project, just less than a mile long, is planned from Sea Island Parkway to Jonathan Francis Sr. Road along MLK Drive, which divides the 47-acre Penn Center campus and its 19 buildings, including historic structures related to its original function as a school for newly freed slaves. A small portion would be a 10-foot-wide boardwalk over marshland.
The sidewalk plans are part of a broader effort to build more walking and biking paths countywide.
“I’m trying to look for pathways throughout St. Helena just to allow for exercising,” said County Councilman York Glover, who is recommending the project, which falls within his district. “This is the first of hopefully more to come.”
Penn Center, founded in 1862, was designated a National Historic Landmark District on Dec. 2, 1974. Bernie Wright, its interim executive director, says Penn Center is one of only three historic districts in South Carolina and one of two historic districts nationally that protect predominately Black historic sites.
“That’s all pretty important stuff,” Wright said. “We all need to keep that in the back of our minds.”
The concern of Penn Center officials with the sidewalk plan, Wright said, is that the path could potentially take out trees which are important to the original historic district designation. “Any alterations or deviations of what qualified it as a (historic) district to begin with always come under scrutiny,” Wright said.
Glover says he’s heard criticism from some Penn Center board members that tree removal could threaten Penn Center’s historic district designation, but he says the discussion on cutting down trees is premature because the project is only in the preliminary design stage.
How many trees could be removed, he adds, isn’t even known yet.
“I’ve been called a tree cutter,” Glover says, “and that’s furthest from the truth.”
Construction is planned in 2023, said Brittanee Fields, a capital projects coordinator with Beaufort County Engineering.
An engineering survey, which will determine the sidewalk design, is in progress, Fields said.
Several of the trees along MLK have been marked with pink ribbons. Those trees are not designated for removal, Fields said. Surveyors typically mark significant trees or other data during a survey, Fields said.
“Any type of impacts have not been determined,” Fields said, “until we get it surveyed and begin design.”
Penn Center is currently checking with the U.S. Department of the Interior about how the removal of trees could affect the historic designation, Wright said. The Interior Department designates historic districts through the National Park Service. Once that designation issue is cleared up, Wright said, Penn Center will be better able to take a position on the sidewalk project.
If there is concern, Penn Center has some potential alternative routes it could suggest to Beaufort County, and it isn’t against the county using sales tax funds to building waking and biking paths, Wright said.
“We’re not adversarial to any of that kind of assistance,” Wright said. “We just want to make sure everybody involved knows how important it is to have a certification or designation such as this.”
Deloris Pringle, a member of the Penn Center board of directors, said cutting down old trees could threaten the status of the National Historic Landmark District. Some of the trees, she added, are over 100 years old.
“They won’t grow back in my lifetime,” Pringle said. “They won’t grow back in my grandchildrens’ lifetime.”
Glover, the county councilman, said bout two-thirds of the people who have commented on the project to date have been in favor although they wanted the path narrowed, Glover said.
The original plan called for an 8-foot-wide pathway with a 5-foot-wide grass buffer, he noted. Based on public comments, the county changed course and is now proposing the 5-foot-wide sidewalk with a 5-foot-wide grass buffer.
It will be located within the South Carolina Department of Transportation’s right-of-way.
The time to discuss the trees, Glover said, will be when a specific design is ready.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen with the trees,” Glover said. “I’ll know when the results come in.”
If the decision was up to him, Glover said, he would recommend that some trees be removed because they are unhealthy and hazardous.
“There’s some live oaks that should remain,” Glover said. “And there are some live oaks that should come down.”
More about the project
The sidewalk is one of eight sidewalks and multi-use pathways planned across Beaufort County being funded with $10 million raised in the 2018 penny sales tax referendum. The projects are part of the county’s effort to better connect communities through different modes of transportation other than vehicles.
Construction will begin on two of the projects this spring. One is a $750,000, 5-foot sidewalk on Ribaut Road from Lenora Drive to the existing sidewalk just past Rahn Lane in Port Royal. The other is a $250,000, 8-foot-wide shared-use path connecting the existing pathway on Bluffton Parkway to the existing sidewalk on Bluffton Road in Bluffton.
The other six projects, including the MLK sidewalk — the only one proposed on St. Helena Island — are not as far along in the process.
When the sidewalk is completed, residents will be able to use it for exercise, or getting to the Leroy E. Browne Medical Center, St. Helena Branch Library or the commercial district on Sea Island Parkway, Fields said. Tourists also could reach historical sites in the area using the sidewalk. The proposed location is across MLK Drive from the Penn Center, one of the first schools for Blacks in the South and a National Historic Landmark District that’s part of the Reconstruction Era National Park.
The county reserves the right to not do the project, Glover added. Another project on Meridian Road could be considered in its place, Glover noted. That project also would require obtaining rights-of-ways, Glover said, and the possibility of trees being cut down.
Glover says he’s been pushing for additional pathways on St. Helena Island for health and safety reasons.
With a sidewalk along MLK, GLover said, residents could park a car at the library or health center and walk to Sea Island Parkway and back. MLK Drive, Glover notes, is very narrow and is not safe for foot or bicycle traffic, especially at night.
“It’s an opportunity to open up a pathway,” Glover says, “and also provide a safety feature for citizens.”
An engineering team will design the sidewalk to meander around trees and other notable items to minimize impacts, Fields said. Once the design of the MLK sidewalk project reaches 65% design completion, Fields added, another public meeting will be scheduled to present the project and receive additional public comment.
This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 11:12 AM.
