Noisette: Now that lenders have filed a $23.8M foreclosure suit, what happens next?

One of the many signs displayed inside the Noisette Co.'s headquarters is the simple statement: "Noisette is Faith."

For those who would like to believe in the company's ability to follow through on its ambitious plans for renovating the former Charleston Naval Base, that statement is truer than ever.

A $23.8 million foreclosure suit was filed last week against the Navy Yard at Noisette, a suit that threatens to derail or at least delay redevelopment on two-thirds of its property.

Company officials, including Chief Executive Officer John Knott, were quick to say the company hopes to refinance its debt with Capmark Finance Inc. and other lenders so it can keep focusing on the entire 340 acres of the old Navy base that it bought from the city of North Charleston six years ago.

But even if that doesn't pan out, the company still owns 100 acres not mortgaged under that loan, and it is turning more attention there.

The foreclosure also may have little effect on the vast ongoing redevelopment of the 3,000 acres extending north and west from the former Navy base's northern end, a redevelopment the company helped plan shortly after its inception in 2001.

"The Navy Yard is part of Noisette. It is not Noisette," Knott said. "That's what everybody gets confused about."

The company's willingness to plan for a wider revitalization — plus its commitment to build a new Riverfront Park for the city and to create new nonprofits to raise environmental awareness and rehabilitate ex-convicts — was one reason the city gave the company such a good deal on the 340 acres.

The $9.6 million that Noisette paid the city is far less than the $23.8 million that it was able to borrow against 240 of those acres just a few years later.

Just as the Navy base was a hodgepodge of historic mansions, metal warehouses, nice office buildings and a heavy industrial shipyard, the impacts from the pending foreclosure could prove to be an equally mixed bag.

A tour of the base with Noisette's Director of Development Jeff Baxter shed light on which areas have something at stake as the drama plays out.

North of the creek

While the Noisette Co. has yet to build the thousands of new homes, offices and retail spaces called for in its redevelopment plan, it has leased out many of the vacant buildings. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area north of Noisette Creek.

More than half a dozen businesses have moved into these bland warehouse spaces to do everything from building structural house panels to distilling diesel fuel from animal fat.

Baxter said the company's long-term vision here has shifted from a marina-centered development to an "eco-industrial" park.

David Merritt found a suitable vacant building here to start Coast Brewing Co. What once was climate-controlled storage for Navy documents now houses barrels that produce about 20 kegs of beer a week.

Merritt's lease runs only about three more years, and he is concerned about what might happen if this land changes hands in the foreclosure suit. Other businesses with leases here are watching and wondering, too.

"I don't want to pack my stuff and go anywhere. I just got it in here," Merritt said. "We don't want to see any overtaking by the train companies. That's the biggest worry, that the big train guys are going to come in and buy it up."

One spot along the creek is earmarked for an eventual museum dedicated for the Hunley, the Confederate submarine now being restored farther south on the base.

"We try to hedge our bets with the future," Baxter said. "We don't know what's going to happen here, but in the meantime, we'll do this."

Historic hospital area

The Noisette Co. was planning to redevelop the base's historic hospital district in its third and final phase, but Baxter said the company is turning more attention there because this largely vacant property is not part of the foreclosure suit.

"If you can't reassess and adjust the plan," he said, "you're going to die."

The district includes several older buildings eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, and most of them are painted white and in need of cosmetic repairs. The overall area is only about 10 percent occupied.

The company had planned to demolish the hospital, but now is considering ways to reuse it, possibly for senior housing or some other use.

"It will take a while," Baxter said. "I don't know what the ultimate solution could be, but there could be a great project out there."

Old officers' housing

An even more historic and scenic part of the base is the collection of fine homes nestled in the gentle hills near the base's Riverfront Park. Before the base shut down in 1995, this was where the admiral and other top officers lived.

Most of these buildings either have been repaired or sealed up, with the rotted portico on the admiral's house in the worst shape.

A chain link fence separates this housing area from the new Riverfront Park, although the company hoped the housing would become an attractive public zone instead of a gated community of private homes.

Noisette has leased a few buildings here — the television show "Army Wives" is being shot around one — and the nonprofit group SC Strong has leased two others to help its mission of providing new training and help to ex-convicts.

Instead of dividing the property into private residences, the company has hoped to redevelop these buildings as a small inn, a restaurant and an event and wedding center.

Those plans never got off the drawing boards and now remain even further up in the air because this area falls under the foreclosure suit.

Storehouse Row

The row of old warehouse buildings that line the shipyard site was where Noisette began, when it renovated No. 7 Storehouse Row for its offices.

Since then it has renovated 10 Storehouse Row, a space now largely leased to artists, a restaurant and the American College of the Building Arts.

The metal warehouses across the street are leased by Charleston Marine Containers Inc. and Celadon, a Lowcountry furniture retailer.

Baxter said the company is looking to sell the historic brick warehouses at 8 and 9 Storehouse Row for renovation, as well as the more modern-looking 6 Storehouse Row.

Baxter said the older buildings particularly are well- suited for residential use, especially since about 750 people work at a SPAWAR facility across the street.

Across McMillan Avenue, workers have begun stripping old industrial pipes and boilers from the outside of the Powerhouse, one of the most imposing buildings on the base.

Powerhouse Basin

A final large swath of property affected by the foreclosure suit is the roughly 40 acres of parking lot along Spruill and McMillan avenues, at the front door of the base.

The company borrowed the $23.8 million as a bridge loan to finance engineering and other planning work to redo the roads and utility lines here to support a dense urban development of multifamily residential, offices and stores.

The plan called for a new Powerhouse Basin, a tidal lake that would solve the area's drainage problems while making an attractive focal point.

Whereas other parts of the base are being reused and modified a little at a time, this was where the most dramatic and dense transformation was to take place.

North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey said he thinks it still will be, regardless of whether Noisette retains this land or it's bought by someone else.

"It's going to be interesting to see where it goes," he said, "but I can assure you that it's the belief of the administration that it will be a successful development no matter who is at the helm."

Reach Robert Behre at rbehre@postandcourier.com or 937-5771.