Wetlands might be restored

When the Navy started building on the site of an old plantation in what is now North Charleston in 1901, meandering wetlands extended from near what is now a dry dock near Supply Street, through what became outlying buildings of the base, across Spruill Avenue and behind Toole Military Magnet School, where the old fuel tank farm once stood.

Some of those wetlands remain near the residential neighborhoods of Chicora-Cherokee off the base, but the Navy covered over much of the marshland on the base.

Those wetlands could one day be restored if a vision laid out Friday for the future of the proposed Clemson University Restoration Institute becomes a reality.

After three days of conceptualizing what the future institute's campus might look like on the former Charleston Naval base, university officials outlined a vision of a campus built around the wetlands that once ran through the property.

Other concepts that emerged from the meeting include keeping the Hunley lab on or very close to the base and possibly tying the current 17-acre site near the Cooper River to the larger, 69-acre inland parcel.

Both were donated by the city of North Charleston to the university to entice economic development in an area left blighted after the Navy pulled out in 1996.

The two parcels are separated by Charleston Water System property.

Those are conceptual ideas that will serve as a starting point for a professionally designed plan by the spring of 2008 for the future campus, said John W. Kelly, executive director of the institute.

"We have the beginnings of some concepts that will be massaged," he said.

On restoring the wetlands, Kelly said one of the challenges will be to learn what is in the ground, where the utilities are and who owns those utilities.

Among other challenges is deciding where the academic buildings will go and where research businesses will be allowed to locate on the 86-acre site, he said.

Another is joining the different parcels.

"That's a big complexity if it's not resolved, and we could end up with two disconnected campuses," Kelly said.

Clemson officials also want to create a green campus with walkways and bike paths to keep students out of their cars as much as possible.

Another challenge is determining how to integrate what might become a high-tech, research institute into the greater community, which is bordered by some of North Charleston's poorer neighborhoods.

"How do you make this more of a community without fences rather than an isolated campus?" Kelly said.

Bill Stanfield, head of the Metanoia Community Development Corp., which helps the poor in Chicora-Cherokee with housing opportunities and other efforts, welcomes the infusion that Clemson will bring but is concerned at the same time.

"It's both a great threat and great opportunity to our community," he said. "Whenever you drop that much economic development into an area, it will push all the folks who live here out. If you can find a way to integrate the folks over here, it can increase economic opportunities."

The idea of keeping the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley and its laboratory on or near the base instead of moving it north of Noisette Creek to a proposed city-owned maritime museum was not summarily discounted by North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey.

"I'm not opposed to it if it blends with the best use," Summey said.

Of the overall plan, he said, "I think it's a great concept."

Reach Warren Wise at 745-5850 or wwise@postandcourier.com.