North Charleston kicks off next phase of Oak Terrace Preserve, buys a restaurant, plans an arts community

In a flurry of development-related announcements today North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said the city is launching the next phase of the Oak Terrace residential development, and will separately create an “artist colony” in the Park Circle area.

The city has also purchased a foreclosed-upon restaurant on the former Navy Base adjacent to city-owned property, Summey said, and plans to use the Runaway Bay building for meetings and events.

And, the inspection process known as “due diligence” continues in a deal where the city is selling the former Shipwatch Square shopping center and former Naval Hospital to a developer that plans to draw a grocery store to the site and create housing for seniors.

“I think we are probably looking at another 60 days to close (the sale),” Summey said.

If accomplished, that sale and development would realize the city’s long-sought goal of attracting a full-service grocery store to the area, at Rivers and McMillan avenues.

The proposed arts building that Summey described as an artist colony would be in the Park Circle area, in the last remaining building on the Garco manufacturing site near East Montague Avenue, where The Beach Company plans to build new housing and stores.

Summey said the city is negotiating with the company to buy the building.

Not far away, on the other side of Park Circle, Oak Terrace Preserve is a neo-traditional residential development directly across the street from Academic Magnet High School and Charleston County School of the Arts.

The city 10 years ago bought and cleared the land, which had been low-income rental housing, and has been selling lots to builders who are constructing single-family homes and townhomes in three phases, the second of which is beginning now.

“We couldn’t be more happy with what has been accomplished so far,” said Council President Bob King, who lives in the adjoining neighborhood.

Read more in Saturday’s editions of The Post and Courier. Follow David Slade on Twitter @DSladeNews.