Old neighborhoods, new opportunities

Renovations

transforming

N. Charleston

Our neighbors have lived happily in their chosen hometown for more than a decade. But like many of our retired friends from "off," they don't know their city, never toured its older neighborhoods nor understood its history. Too often, they admit, they're concerned about North Charleston's underlying image and reputation for crime, slums and economic-social divides. Many will say that's an image North Charleston has earned. I say it's an image that's changing — rapidly.

The city presents every possible social and economic contrast. It's challenged simultaneously by booming growth on its boundaries and the stagnation of many older neighborhoods. Its unabashed annexation ambitions, especially in the Watson Hill area of Dorchester County, scare preservation and conservation groups. But as the city redevelops its older neighborhoods, a vibrancy attaches and the values of preservation and neighborhood living qualities register. Mayor Keith Summey talks openly of "smart growth." City planning agents promote park land acquisitions and nature trails. City-sponsored cultural and performing arts programs are offered year round. This is a town of so many opportunities to renew its cultural identity and get growth right.

It was time to take my neighbors on a selective tour and on this evening, a popular new restaurant near North Charleston's old village center was the attraction. Thousands speed through North Charleston every day, on Interstate 26, through the regional airport and Amtrak station. Too few ever see this city in transition, nor appreciate that North Charleston has an interesting history, too. The community was thoughtfully planned and much of it laid out as a trade-marked "Garden City" in 1901. Those well-planned streets converging at Park Circle today are named for city fathers — that would be Charleston city fathers who a century ago, saw the rural North Area as a sure-shot chance to expand the boundaries of their peninsular city.

North Charleston has been a functioning community for more than a century, but a real city for only 35 years. From its standing start as a municipality in 1972, the city has progressed from seven square miles and 21,000 citizens to 73 square miles and a population of 85,000. North Charleston is South Carolina's third largest city and is beginning to act like a town that has earned its right to value its history, heritage and image.

A quick exit off the Interstate and we were moving through Liberty Hill, an historic African-American neighborhood where generational homesteading maintains the spirit and dignity of an old and stable community. Our neighbors had never heard of Liberty Hill and they were impressed. After two quick left turns, there's the stately old Oak Grove orphanage campus, anchoring a well-maintained parks and recreation area. Just ahead is "Century Oaks," a new home redevelopment project featuring environmentally friendly building and land impacts techniques. North Charleston is gaining a reputation for its "green" initiatives; in a bold move last week, the city salvaged a teetering land conservation deal by purchasing the targeted acreage from private owners and dedicating most of it for green space banking.

On this clear, cool evening, young couples are walking the streets, many with children in tow. Nothing menacing or mean about these streets, they seem to portray an expansive neighborhood in full-form transformation, old becoming new. The mayor and his family live just a block away. So does the police chief.

A mile away, century-old oak trees stand in a cleared 44-acre tract, proud remnants of a housing project constructed in the 1940s in support of Navy war efforts. Here, the Mixson project is under way by the I'On Group, locally based and one of the nation's most respected developers. It's a proven model — redevelopment begets redevelopment. The initiative affirms informed confidence in the future of the city's urban center. This activity is at the center of the metropolitan universe. The airport and Amtrak station are nearby.

So are the city's performing arts auditorium and the regional convention center, anchoring a commercial and retail shopping district where commercial property values have nearly tripled in a five-year period. One of the top restaurateurs in the South will soon open a fine dining restaurant near the coliseum complex. "Fine dining" in North Charleston. Yes, the old city is changing and the market is listening.

Park Circle is alive with activity — walkers, little leaguers getting a head start on the baseball season, and parents pushing baby carriages. In every direction, the neighborhood seems neat, occupied and safe. In the Old Village, rival bank branches abide one door from each other on the same side of Montague Avenue. There's a day spa and law offices — and more restaurants. Evo's, the organic pizza restaurant, is by definition very successful — it's a pricey place and business is booming. An employee there said she moved to North Charleston from Mount Pleasant two years ago and has fallen in love with "... the spirit of a real neighborhood."

My neighbors now want to see more of North Charleston. I especially want to show them the old navy yard where my father worked and where the Noisette project offers a lingering promise of a "New American City."

But this was a selective tour and the towering reality is that neighborhood revitalization in North Charleston is a giant work in progress. To be clear, there are some neighborhoods we dare not visit. But sustained neighborhood revitalization is a formula for reclaiming the mean streets in any city. Old neighborhood developments are yielding some new lessons for North Charleston . One is a documentation of the market-proven linkage of uncontrived livability and economic values. That's a lesson that can and should be fully applied to North Charleston's ambitious plans for incremental growth on its boundaries. And over time, that's a lesson that will help renew North Charleston's reputation as a city of many desirable neighborhoods.

Ron Brinson, a former associate editor of this newspaper, is a North Charleston native who resides in the city's Dorchester County district.