Maersk wants financial life raft to stay at port

Maersk Lines, the Port of Charleston's biggest client, is threatening to pull out of the Holy City unless the State Ports Authority and the International Longshoremen's Association can come together and throw it a financial life raft, officials say.

Maersk recently closed its Charleston customer-service center as part of a nationwide cost-cutting effort, and the SPA said the company's worldwide market-share is down. It is seeking to change its contract with the port.

But the SPA and the union have been unable to find common ground in the high-stakes negotiations. One solution proposed by the ports authority and supported by Maersk would cut dozens of union jobs at a time when man-hours on the local docks have already plummeted. ILA officials won't have it, saying it would set a troubling industry precedent.

Google gala

Internet search giant Google Inc. marked its official arrival in the Lowcountry by holding a ribbon cutting at it $600 million data center near Goose Creek. The private ceremony provided a rare glimpse into the secretive Silicon Valley company's 500-acre site off U.S. Highway 52. The data center houses equipment that processes and stores information that Internet search users request and retrieve. The first structure is still in the testing phase; a second, identical building is under construction nearby. Executives said the center was specially built to use half of the electricity that most data sites need. About 200 employees are expected to work there once the facility is fully operational in a few years.

Take three

The hit cable television series "Army Wives" plans to march into a third season of filming in Charleston early next year, and its producers are hoping for the state to come through with stronger incentive agreements for film companies like theirs.

The state provides a one-year incentive package for the ABC/Mark Gordon Co. production. Producers must reapply every year to receive incentives, according to the S.C. Film Commission.

Harry Bring, a producer of the show, said extending the tax rebates and other financial inducements over several years could attract more film business to South Carolina. "Army Wives" producers spent about $15 million during their first year of filming in South Carolina,

Folly hotel redo

The nine-story pink building rises at the end of Center Street at Folly Beach like a beacon to the sea, but that's about to change. At least the pink part. By March, the Folly Beach Holiday Inn will present a new face in earthy shades of brown under a $5.5 million renovation of the lodging 1 Center Street LLC, which includes principals of Avocet Properties. On Nov. 3 the oceanfront hotel's doors will shut, and they won't reopen until March 5.

The property will remain a Holiday Inn because a franchise agreement locks in that brand until November 2010. But the current ownership group is considering other lodging flags.

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