Shem Creek Park opens at 9:30 a.m.

MOUNT PLEASANT -- The new Shem Creek Park, which opens this morning, is the biggest thing to happen here since Memorial Waterfront Park became a reality two years ago.

The project has 2,200 feet of boardwalk from Coleman Boulevard to near the mouth of the creek at Charleston Harbor. Fishing and floating docks for recreational boating will be free

The park opens after a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 9:30 a.m.

Visitors who travel by boat to eat at a creek restaurant will be able to tie up at 250 feet of docks. Motorists will have a choice of 35 parking spaces next to new public restrooms. Spillover parking will be available at the nearby Shrimp Boat Lane.

The boardwalk includes commercial fishing boat docks made available annually through a lottery. The arrangement offers visitors a closer look at a working shrimp or crab boat.

The park will be open daily from 5 a.m. to midnight.

The first stretch of 10-foot-wide boardwalk connects from the new parking lot just off Coleman Boulevard to a hummock island in the marsh. From there, a section of boardwalk goes toward commercial docks while another stretch heads in a different direction toward the harbor and recreational docks.

The project redeveloped what was previously privately owned decaying boardwalk and docks. The hummock island, once littered with trash, has been cleaned up. In all, the park offers views of about 40 acres of marsh.

It cost $2.5 million to build the new boardwalk and docks, and $6 million to buy the creekside acreage to preserve it from future development.