NORTH CHARLESTON: Economic boom expected to carry city though

North Charleston became the aerospace and wind turbine technology capitol of South Carolina in 2009, while the mayor celebrated 15 years in office and the crime rate continued to decline.

But two nagging questions will continue into 2010: Will the Noisette redevelopment project survive its financial and creditor troubles? And how will the city's duel over railroad access toward the waterfront play out?

North Charleston benefitted from two of the state's largest economic prizes in 2009 when the Boeing Co., taking advantage of a Statehouse incentive package, agreed in October to move beyond its Washington roots to North Charleston for its expanded 787 Dreamliner assembly line.

Weeks after that prize was announced, the U.S. Department of Energy said a site at the former Charleston Naval Base would become a test bed for the world's largest offshore wind turbines.

Landing two such projects in one year was labeled a major economic coup nationally, with some estimating that thousands of jobs will be created.

Mayor Keith Summey called the expansion news "another exciting piece of the economic puzzle to help our region recover" from the national economic downturn.

Summey in October also celebrated 15 years in office, dating the start of his service to the closing of the Navy base and shipyard complex that cost the region by some estimates 30,000 jobs.

On the crime front, North Charleston's crime rate continued to fall as its ranking dropped from the 10th most dangerous city in 2007 to the 22nd most dangerous in 2008, according to the Washington-based CQ Press. At the end of 2008, Police Chief Jon Zumalt credited the drop to a strategy of flooding officers into the neighborhoods where shootings occurred as a means of heading off retaliatory violence.

The most nagging issue for the city could rekindle in January. State lawmakers are expected to again address the possibility of opening the northern approach into the Navy base complex to rail traffic. The access could be capable of reaching near a new State Ports Authority terminal being built at the base's southern end. But some city officials say re-industrializing the area would destroy years of neighborhood revitalization.