Naval Health Clinic leaving Rivers Ave. building

It's big, boxy and soon to be vacant.

The former Charleston Naval Hospital, a landmark on Rivers Avenue, will stand empty in three weeks when a Navy health clinic there shuts its doors.

The good news for local military and retirees is that the walk-in clinic isn't going away for good. It will re-open as a new and modern operation inside the gates of the Naval Weapons Station starting Sept. 20.

But the fact the 10-story building adjacent to McMillian Avenue is finally being shuttered has triggered a bit of nostalgia for those who remember a full-scale Navy presence once being synonymous with Charleston.

"For the retirees, it's been a pretty good anchor," said Gary Gardner, command historian at the clinic that evolved after the full-service hospital shut down in the wake of the adjacent Naval case and shipyard closure. "A lot of retirees are sad to see it go."

The Rivers Avenue site was the fifth Navy hospital building connected to the Charleston base. The first dates to 1898 and was more of a small-scale dispensary. Other hospital buildings and expansions followed at the base, with patient populations swelling in correlation to the heavy fighting during both World Wars.

The current building dates to 1973, and during its lifetime thousands of local military from all services received treatment there. When the current clinic sees its last patient Sept. 17, the last of about 374 employees will move to the new, $47 million Charleston Naval Health Clinic at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station.

The new site is a 188,000-square foot, state-of-the-art layout. It offers a drive-through pharmacy and a variety of other health care upgrades for active duty service members, their family members, retirees and veterans. It is "ambulatory," or for "walk-in, walk-out" services.

The site is expected to be active for years to come. Of the estimated 63,000 military retirees living in the Charleston area, about 15,000 -- or 1 out of every 4 -- use the clinic's services, Capt. Paula H. McClure, the clinic's commanding officer, said.

What will happen to the old hospital building is yet to be decided. For the short term, it will become the property of the Government Services Administration, i.e., the federal landlord. Options for new tenants include other federal offices moving in, or possible state, local or public service groups. The building also could be pursued by the private sector. It sits across from the former Shipyard Square shopping center that the City of North Charleston is planning to develop with a supermarket, bank and drug store.

Some real estate investors predict the chances of the former clinic becoming a private sector office probably isn't an immediate likelihood. Jeremy N. Willits, local senior vice president of office services at Grubb & Ellis, said that at first glance, the area remains too depressed and that there are not enough desirable walk-to stores and shopping close by to support office staff.

"It would need more vitality and life in the immediate area, to create a demand," he said.

With the building set to close, officials spent last week moving out but were also trying to find a home for some of the memorabilia and photographs collected of the hospital and its functions over the past decades. Some of the items are dated, including black and white photographs of children taking sugar cubes coated in the polio vaccine, and of 1950s Navy nurses competing in "Miss Naval Hospital" beauty contests.

Reach Schuyler Kropf at 937-5551 or skropf@postandcourier.com.