Southwest eyes destinations from Upstate

Mum's the word in the Lowcountry, but a chatty top airport official in the Upstate is talking publicly about some of the destinations that Southwest Airlines might fly to from Greenville.

The Greenville News reported last week that the low-fare giant is studying at least five cities: Boston, Nashville, Denver, Las Vegas and Baltimore. Dave Edwards, Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport's executive director, suggested those destinations to the carrier, which he said is considering them.

The airline also is reviewing at least three other markets already served by carriers in the Upstate. Those are Chicago, Houston and Tampa, Fla. The News reported that Edwards expects Southwest to make its debut at his airport with six to eight daily flights connecting the Upstate with four destinations, though he was not entirely certain that it would play out that way.

A spokeswoman for the carrier would not elaborate on Edwards' comments.

Southwest announced this year that it would launch service from Charleston and Greenville next spring but offered no other details.

Lowcountry airport and tourism officials would only say they expect a final decision about the Dallas-based carrier's local pairings in the fall. The early buzz had Southwest offering daily service to Baltimore and Chicago from Charleston International Airport.

Dig in

Clemson University has set a date to break ground on its $98 million wind turbine test facility. Call it a groundbreaking of sorts.

The school isn't actually putting up a new structure. Instead, it plans to renovate an aging warehouse that was built on the former Navy base in 1942. But the pricey facility will have the most advanced capabilities of any such laboratory in the world, so it still warrants a measure of pomp and circumstance.

The celebration is set for 11:30 a.m. Oct. 28 at the North Charleston site, which is expected to open next year. Economic development officials are banking that the test lab will yield fat dividends for South Carolina by attracting other turbine businesses to the area.

Tar Heel: Take 1

While South Carolina's film incentives seem always at risk of being axed, rival state North Carolina just sweetened its deal.

New legislation signed into law in late July adds more expenditures to North Carolina's 25 percent film incentive. That includes labor fringe benefits, such as health and pension contributions, and living expenses.

The new law also raises overall project eligibility cap considerably from $7.5 million to $20 million per project.

The legislation repeals the corporate income tax on incentives taken by production companies, something those companies can take advantage of now and file on their 2011 tax returns.

South Carolina's most recent film news took on a different tone: "Army Wives" actresses Catherine Bell and Kim Delaney traveled to the Statehouse in late June to lend their star power to a key legislative vote that could have sent the hit cable show packing.

The Senate voted 28-13 to override a budget veto that provides incentives designed to lure the film industry to South Carolina. Current law provides 20 percent for South Carolina residents' wages and 30 percent for supplies purchased from in-state businesses.

Without the level of incentives offered in the budget provision, the Lifetime drama might have moved the Charleston-based production out of state.

North Carolina film officials said the motion picture industry brought more than $326 million in direct spending to the state over the past three years. Recent features include: "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," "Leatherheads" and "Nights in Rodanthe."

The WB's "Dawson's Creek" called North Carolina home for six seasons. The CW's "One Tree Hill" recently started filming its eighth season in the state, which boasts a large film production industry in Wilmington.

Guess who?

Some company somewhere is considering creating more jobs in Berkeley County.

The S.C. Department of Commerce's Enterprise Program Committee met last week to discuss a handful of confidential business expansions across the state. Committee officials reviewed the proposals, which included a project in Berkeley County, to see if they qualified for job development credits.

Those perks enable a company to get a tax rebate -- specifically, a portion of new employees' withholding taxes -- that executives can put back into the business.

The Berkeley project was approved for the perk, but commerce spokeswoman Kara Borie declined to provide even basic details about the company's intentions. The number of jobs it would create, the location of the company, whether it even already exists in the county -- all details that remain unknown.

Berkeley County economic development director Gene Butler said he did not know of the committee's agenda last week.

He also said he was unaware of any business prospect that had an application in front of that panel.