Plans for 'Midtown' unveiled

Detailed plans have been laid out for Midtown, a long-planned hotel, condo and retail project on upper King and Meeting streets, and the similarities with Charleston Place are hard to ignore.

The opening of Charleston Place in 1986 is widely credited with revitalizing downtown Charleston, and particularly lower King Street. The developers of Midtown are hoping their $150 million project will be a catalyst for the upper end of King Street.

Development has been steadily moving up King Street, but where Midtown is planned there are still plenty of vacant lots and empty storefronts.

"We really think (this) can build an anchor to King and Meeting that will create an entrance to downtown Charleston," said Reid Freeman, president of Atlanta-based Regent Partners, the lead developer on the project.

Like Charleston Place, Midtown will feature a high-end hotel and street-level retail stores. And like Charleston Place, Midtown will occupy a large part of a city block between King and Meeting streets along Spring Street, covering more than four acres.

The project would incorporate several existing, historic buildings on King Street, including the former Bank of America branch at Cannon Street.

"The last place with this kind of volume was Charleston Place, and thatÂ's exactly what they did; create a sense of place," said local developer Robert Clement III.

Unlike Charleston Place, which was partly financed by federal loans and owes the city about $22 million, Midtown will be built with private money.

Midtown's developers are Regent Partners; Integral Urban Investments, also of Atlanta; Raleigh-based Cherokee Investment Partners; and Clement, president of CC&T Real Estate Services.

The eight-story hotel and condo buildings proposed for Midtown would be the tallest on that stretch of King and Meeting, and just a few feet shorter than a Hilton hotel planned on the edge of Marion Square.

Read more in Tuesday's edition of The Post and Courier.