The Man With "The Plan"

A funny thing happened along the way to the first public forum on the city’s plan to revitalize West Ashley last week.
First, the plan was never meant to be a “West Ashley-wide” improvement plan. Months ago, city fathers and officials began meeting to figure out a way to resuscitate Citadel Mall, which had fallen into receivership.
Then, it was decided, the plan to save the mall should also consider the moribund commercial real estate landscape that is Sam Rittenberg Boulevard.
Somewhere along the way, city councilmen representing parts of West Ashley saw an opportunity to get some of the attention the peninsula usually enjoys, and went into a full-court press on Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr.
Bolstered by close to 60,000 voters in their districts, and census numbers putting the total population in West Ashley closer to 100,000, they began to gain more and more traction with City Hall.
Parks got planned, built, and opened. The plan widened. Commercial developers from out of state bought a strip mall. And the plan widened. A senior center got the green light.
And the plan widened even more.
“What took so [expletive] long,” hissed one attendee, sitting along the wall.
Last Tuesday night, a night when primary elections were supposed to be front and center, the cafetorium at the Ashley River Creative Arts Elementary was packed. Not with primary voters. But with voters interested in what the city planned to do with West Ashley.
Enough West Ashleyians showed up that soon there weren’t enough places to sit. More rows of benches were rolled out. And then baskets were removed from other benches along the wall so that more seats could be improvised.
Soon, Police Chief Greg Mullen wasn’t the only interested party standing in the back. A middle school assistant principal stood nearby. A salon owner squatted on a converted shelf.
And standing stage center was Tim Keane, the city’s head of planning, explaining City Hall’s plan to make sure West Ashley catches the same ride to prosperity that carried Mt. Pleasant for the past 10 years and is about to crash into “the north area,” as he called it — North Charleston, Hanahan, Goose Creek, and beyond.
Except that, the plan isn’t complete.
Sure, Keane said there were critical parts — attracting office space, refurbishing entryways, correcting infrastructure failings — already in mind. But, he said, the city was only halfway through the second of its four-part planning process.
Riley talked about the looming construction of the West Ashley Traffic Circle, and the looming completion of Bees Ferry Road improvement s as Keane told the crowd of close to 200 about how the area’s transportation’s woes will be largely improved when the county and the state stop “quibbling” over the Interstate 526 completion project.
Keane likened Citadel Mall’s future as a starting point for West Ashley in much the same way Charleston Place was a kickstarter for peninsular growth. He said that the mall, which now has kiosks holding storefronts inside, could quickly become the center of a de facto small town, West Ashley.
But, wait, there’s more. The city’s plan for the mall will be completed in early fall, and put into process by the end of the year. City designers have been working with the new owners of the Ashley Landing shopping center on a new approach and treatment for its outbuildings.
And then there’s the city’s 10,000 Trees initiative, and the … and the …
And then the question of how all of this is going to get paid for was broached. City Councilman Aubry Alexander, still considering running for Riley’s job, brought up publicly the need for a tax increment-financing zone (TIF).
TIF zones allow a small public organ to redirect taxes collected in a certain area to projects in that area alone. There are TIF zones downtown, and Alexander opined they could work in West Ashley.
Before then, Alexander had been working the back rooms of the TIF argument, trying not to get into a tiff with the mayor, who has used the method for several of his pet projects downtown.
Mt. Pleasant even tied their TIF efforts with federal matching-funds projects to stretch their funding; according to one area official snarking in the back.
But will all these plans come to fruition? And before Riley leaves office? And before others leave West Ashley?
One area couple, Eric and Linda Willson said that they were considering leaving their home in West Ashley for Mt. Pleasant, and were eager to see “the plan.” They waited in line to talk to Keane, eager to share with him a podcast about a “neighborhoods-first” community-planning ethos.
Walter Daszy, co-owner of the Sojourn Coffee shop located across Old Towne Road from Ashley Landing, squirmed, making himself not storm out.
“All I heard from their ‘plan’” was pipe dreams, except for the circle, and we’ve got concrete problems,” Daszy said Friday from behind his counter. Nodding his head at the former fast-food site across the street that is likely the home of West Ashley’s next Starbucks. “I hope they come.”