Quartz CountertopsNear St. George, SC

SAINT GEORGE, S.C. (WCSC) - A Dorchester County industrial park in the works for over 15 years is soon to be completed and will provide many more jobs and access to products for the area.

Winding Woods is a 1,300-acre industrial park in Saint George and Port 95 is a private development within the park. Port 95 will serve as distribution and manufacturing centers for different companies.

Crews are anticipating three buildings to be a part of Port 95, but they are currently completing construction on the first two. One of these buildings will be one million square feet, making it one of the largest buildings in the Charleston region.

This giant building can hold anywhere from one to four companies alone. The second building is about 240,000 square feet and will hold just one company.

This project in its entirety cost $100 million and was privately funded. They have yet to lease the spaces out, but Dorchester County Director of Economic Development John Truluck says they have many prospective companies. He said they have had an encouraging amount of people come to scope the buildings out, but nothing has been finalized yet.

Truluck says they are excited for this project to be completed.

“It has sort of been a field of dreams for Dorchester County to build it,” he says, “So it’s always interesting you know, when the first 10 years of this, everything has been below the surface, but now when you start to see something go vertical, it gets exciting, because that’s real and then everybody else in the community can now see it.”

They first broke ground on this project in October 2022 and are looking at anticipated completion at the end of the quarter. This project is a part of Dorchester County Council’s strategic plan to bring more employment and tax base to areas of the county that haven’t seen growth in the past. Truluck also anticipates that the project will bring more products to the county and believes that all of this will help congestion problems on I-26 from people commuting.

“Our whole objective is to bring jobs and investment to parts of Dorchester County that haven’t had that in the past. So, we hope to fill these buildings with, with jobs so that folks that live in Saint George can also work in Saint George,” Truluck says.

Truluck says that while the physical structure is almost complete, it likely would not be until 2025 that these buildings are up and running. He says the buildings are meant to act as shells so that the companies can make the space suitable for their needs. He said this process would probably take a few months after leasing.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

Rosenwald Schools helped educate Black students in segregated South. Could a national park follow?

ST. GEORGE, S.C. (WCSC/AP) - A part of history in St. George that was set to be bulldozed now has a bright future.

The Rosenwald School in St. George was a building many people may never have been aware of, but it was one of thousands across the south that educated black children during segregation. It opened in 1925 and closed in 1954, eventually falling into an extreme state of disrepair with a caving ceiling, deteriorating floors and chipped, peeling walls.

But a group of former students got together and came up with a plan to save their historic upper Dorchester County school. The newly renovated St. George Rosenwald School will officially become a museum and community center.

It was in schools like the Dorchester County site, and nearly 5,000 others built in the American South a century ago, that Black students largely ignored by whites in power gained an educational foundation through the generosity of a Jewish businessman who could soon be memorialized with a national park.

They are now called Rosenwald Schools in honor of Julius Rosenwald, a part-owner and eventual president of Sears, Roebuck and Co., who teamed up with African American educator and leader Booker T. Washington to create the program to share the expenses of schools for Black children with the community.

There was no public transportation for the school’s students so most had to walk to school except for the lucky few, like Ordie Brown, who caught a ride on a donated bus.

“My father was fortunate enough to buy an old school bus and by getting that bus, I was able to drive that bus from the St. Mark community, bringing children from there, here to this school,” Brown said.

Rosenwald School historian Andrew Feiler says every county in the state had at least one Rosenwald School. Some had up to five. With no public transportation, attempts were made to place the schools in central, accessible locations.

Rosenwald gave $1,500 to each school; the remainder of the cost of each school had to be split between the Black community and local governments. For the Black community, cash, land, material or labor could count as their contribution, Feiler said.

“The leaders of this program reached out to the Black communities of the south and they said, ‘If you would contribute to the schools, because we want you to be a full partner in your progress.’” Feiler said.

Ralph James attended first and second grade at the school and now serves as chairman of the group of seven responsible for restoring the school to repair a caved ceiling, decayed floor and chipped, peeling walls.

“It’s a center of hope. It’s a center of encouragement,” James said. “It inspired us in spite of the odds and challenges we faced.”

The 76-year-old retired municipal judge has made it his life’s goal to restore his old school.

“Education has always been the key to success. Julius Rosenwald gave us that key,” James said.

The six-classroom building will now serve as a museum, historic site, field trip venue and community gathering place for years to come. When visitors walk inside, they will see some of the original floors and some of the original student desks.

The building will feature memorabilia from the school including yearbooks, homemade band uniforms, major red uniforms, and pictures of graduating classes.

State Sen. John Mathews secured $65,000 in state funding while the group raised around $4 million for the project on their own.

“This community came together in a great way to make this project work,” U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn said. “This is the kind of thing that brings people together, and I’m so pleased that they are preserving this history.”

The St. George school was one of the larger ones with six classrooms and an auditorium. Most schools only had one or two classrooms. More than a third of America’s Black children in the first half of the 20th century were educated in a Rosenwald school.

Other Rosenwald schools have been converted into senior centers, town halls, special event venues or restaurants. Many remain recognizable by the careful plans Rosenwald approved. Tall windows oriented to the east and west assured an abundance of natural light and ventilation in rural areas where electricity often didn’t reach until after the Great Depression.

In St. George, the vision isn’t just restoring the school, but providing a sense of the thriving African American neighborhood surrounding it during segregation. Businesses including a grocery store, barber shop and pool hall benefitted the Black community.

Inside the restored school, two classrooms look almost as they did 70 years ago. Another classroom is a public meeting room. The auditorium has been turned into a multipurpose space and will have exhibits detailing the school’s history and hands-on science displays, James said.

“You can feel what it was like just like I did,” he said.

A grand opening is planned for September.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

Google has confirmed it is behind a data center development project in Ridgeville, South Carolina

The search and cloud company has also received permission to develop three more data centers in Belgium.

Google confirmed to expand in South Carolina

Google has revealed itself to be behind the Project Dawson data center proposals in South Carolina.

“The Dorchester County Economic Development (DCED) office, which serves to support economic growth in the county, confirms a relationship with Google who recently closed on property in the county,” the DCED said this week.

“We are thrilled to welcome Google to Dorchester County and know they will be a long-term partner for our community, especially our schools,” said Dorchester County Council Chairman Todd Friddle. “Google has a history of strengthening local workforces and uplifting communities, and we look forward to Google making a positive difference here in Dorchester County.”

Campus specifications or project timelines haven't been shared.

According to the Post and Courier, the company aims to invest $510 million in the new campus – a 231-acre site along Research Center Drive and Highway 17A in Dorchester County’s Pine Hill Business Campus. The Dorchester County Council voted to change the site’s zoning earlier this month.

Google – previously reported as the company likely involved – has previously been conducting business around the project behind the Autumn Timber LLC and Mallard LLC company names. The search company had been referring to the site as Project Dawson.

“We have been proud to call South Carolina home for over fifteen years since we first put down roots in Berkeley County,” Google said in a statement. “Since then, we have partnered closely with local leadership, schools, and nonprofits to lift up the great work happening here. As we look to expand in the state, we have acquired property in Dorchester County for the development of a new data center campus. We look forward to growing our community here in South Carolina and will share details as this long-term project progresses.”

Google currently operates a South Carolina data center campus in Moncks Corner, around 20 miles east of Ridgeville. The company recently acquired another 140 acres in the area.

The Post and Courier also reports that Google, going by the aliases Project Evergreen and Gannett Enterprises LLC, has also is purchasing 206 acres for a proposed third data center near the county's Winding Woods Commerce Park along Pecan Tree Road and Highway 78, outside the town of St. George. The company was granted a $5.55 million purchase option for the land this month.

However, the company reportedly aims to focus on the Pine Hill campus for now, and will expand to the Winding Woods site as demand requires.

Google expands in Belgium

In Belgium, Google has been granted permission for a new data center campus.

The Walloon Region has issued an urban planning permit to the company for the construction of a new data center campus in the Hainaut municipality of Farciennes. The company is reportedly investing €600 million ($646m) in the project.

“The Walloon Region has just granted the permit for the installation of Google in Farcienne,” said Hugues Bayet, mayor of the municipality of Farciennes. “A new step in the realization of the digital giant's welcome in our region and above all the net creation of many jobs!”

Plans for the camps were first announced in July 2023. The campus will span some 53,000 sqm (570,500 sq ft). Previous reports suggested work would begin on the first phase – spanning around 7,500 sqm (80,730 sq ft) – would begin last year and launch in 2025.

More recent press suggests groundbreaking for the first 80MW phase is due to happen later this year.

Google acquired 53 hectares of land in the Ecopôle eco-business park, located across the municipalities of Farciennes, Aiseau-Presles, and Sambreville, in 2019. According to previous reports, energy firm Elia has confirmed that 200-300MW of capacity would be available on the site.

Belgium’s Saint Ghislain was the site of Google’s first data center in Europe. The company has built five data centers at its 90-hectare Saint-Ghislain site since 2009 as well as a solar plant. The company uses the shell company Crystal Computing for much of its dealings in Belgium.

2022 also saw Google acquire a 36-hectare site located in Ecaussinnes, in Hainaut province, in the Feluy industrial zone near La Louvière.

According to Raphael Stokis, a delegated official of the Walloon Region, the conditions attached to the permit will require on-site solar panels. Additionally, 90 percent of the energy consumed on the site must be carbon-free by 2025 and this must even be 95 percent by 2030.

Google will also have to opt for a more sustainable cooling system for the data centers in future – reportedly switching from systems that use water-consuming technology to air-cooling.

RC Mine LLC, Dorchester County and various arms of our state and local governments have some serious explaining to do.

How has MRC Mine been digging a sand pit strip mine just 50 feet from a playground at Harleyville Elementary School and Harleyville-Ridgeville Middle School building for the past six months?

The dangers to children from this activity should be evident to all. Children exposed to this mining operation face breathing difficulties from the dust. The noise from the operation disrupts classroom activity, creates behavioral issues and can cause headaches. Dirty water, sinkholes and dry wells pose safety hazards. The mining activity stresses the school building itself (more than 60 years old).

I have been monitoring this issue for years because of the significant educational, environmental and public safety ramifications. When the Dorchester County Board of Zoning and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) had a public hearing in 2018 about permitting this sand pit strip mining operation, more than 200 community members and professionals, including parents, clergy, the DD4 school board and a state senator all voiced their strong opposition, according to the SCDHEC transcript of the public hearing from June 28, 2018.

As a result, MRC withdrew its mining application. Democracy worked.

But their interest in the location continued. It resurfaced in December 2022 in a particularly audacious and undemocratic fashion. MRC figured out how to avoid community opposition entirely. How?

First, Dorchester County rezoned the property next to the school, permitting the mining as a “conditional use” rather than a special exception. This meant the county’s board of zoning appeals (BZA) was not required to have a public hearing or review MRC’s request for this now-legal “conditional use.”

Second, MRC signed a contract with the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) to mine five acres near the school to provide sand for I-26 construction. SCDOT sand pits, it turns out, are exempt from regulation under the South Carolina Mining Act. This clever move got MRC out of under the oversight of the county and the SCDHEC. The sort of public hearing in 2018 was no longer required and, therefore, never occurred.

Third, MRC owns 87 acres surrounding the school, including the five acres currently permitted for SCDOT mining. However, because of the contract with SCDOT to mine sand for I-26, SCDHEC has withdrawn jurisdictional oversight. Now, MRC wants to mine the entire 87-acre parcel without public hearings.

Fourth, with this legal hustle complete, MRC went before the Dorchester BZA this past February for a variance and permission to mine around the clock on the 87-acre site surrounding the two schools.

Could this open the door for MRC to mine beyond the five acres exempted by the SCDOT contract? I would like to know if MRC is staying within the SCDOT contracted five acres, especially considering the initial mining application covered more than 40 acres of the 87-acre parcel. What about the neighboring residents who have complained of noise they will sometimes hear late at night and of dust? I have driven by and seen dust clouds from the site during school hours.

The state and county are now hiding behind the “legality” of this MRC maneuver, the result of which has been to cut the public out of these decisions and damage the health and welfare of the community’s children.

But all is not yet lost. Here is what you can do now:Attend the March 27, 2024, hearing of the BZA at the county council chambers in St. George.

Contact Sen. Larry Grooms, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, at 803-212-6400.

Call 803-898-1368 to voice your concerns to SCDHEC’s Bureau of Land and Waste Management, Division of Solid Waste Management.

Ask Faith Rivers James, the executive director of the Coastal Conservation League, to intervene. The group can be reached at 843-723-8035.

Fill out this petition to share comments on the project: https://forms.gle/t7RU4f1pCkNppW5N6The risk to our children’s health and safety in St. George is too significant to allow this undemocratic process to play out. We can stop continued sand pit mining only if we flex our muscles as citizens. Otherwise, those who would destroy the health of our children and the quality of our environment for profit will get their way.

The renovated St. George Rosenwald school is one of about 500 in the state and one of nearly 5,000 in the South, all constructed in the early 1900s. Those who have rallied behind preserving the school envision it becoming the community center of the town. It reopened to the public in August.

When it was built in 1925, it was a six-teacher school dedicated to educating African American children. Now, the north wing of the H-shaped building will take on a new life educating future generations as an extension of the Children's Museum of the Lowcountry.

A new museum

The approximately 2,500 square-foot space within the Rosenwald School will feature a tinker lab with hands-on exhibits to explore engineering concepts; a child-sized grocery store where children can learn about nutrition, commerce and money; a space that can promote visual and performing arts; and classroom space for educational programs or field trip groups. It is expected to open in spring 2024.

Karen Coltrane, CML’s president and CEO, called it a "natural extension of our efforts to serve the greater Lowcountry" outside of its downtown Charleston location.

Coltrane said it’s about teaching kids basic concepts that they can connect to real-world situations. For example, a child may see the apple tree and grocery area in the new exhibit, and the next time they are at the store with a parent, they can understand apples come from trees and that people buy apples at the store with money.

“Making those kinds of connections are vital in early development,” Coltrane said. “It’s easier to get them excited about science and learning when they’re little instead of trying to spark it later.”

The milestone marks the nation's first adaptive reuse of a Rosenwald School as a children's museum satellite. It's the starting point for the museum's plans to expand to more rural areas of the Lowcountry.

“It’s going to be a game-changer in expanding access to museum resources for school field trips,” Coltrane said. “By the time you load up a bunch of kids from these more rural areas and bring them downtown, they don’t have a lot of time to spend at the museum itself. This would give them more hands-on access closer to home.”

Connecting past with present

Ralph James, chairman of the board that operates the Rosenwald school, called the restored building the “jewel of the community.”

“It has always been the desire of the community and alumni of the school to see it restored,” James said. “The original effort of the school was built on the foundation of an opportunity to empower members of our community to be able to increase their educational pursuits. We look forward to offering cultural enrichment to the community once again and again charging students with the task to be all that they can be.”

Revitalizing the school has been more than a decade in the making.

Coltrane had taken a tour of the Rosenwald building in 2015 with then-state Rep. Patsy Knight. At the time it was shuttered, shrubs were overgrown and the weatherworn building was not in great shape, Coltrane recalled. She was leading EdVenture in Columbia, scouting for a potential secondary location. While it didn’t pan out, it ignited the idea for the historic building's potential to become a museum outpost.

Coltrane had moved on to other ventures before returning to the Palmetto State to lead the Children's Museum in downtown Charleston. During her second week on the job, Ralph James, board director of the Rosenwald School, called her asking if a children’s museum satellite post was still on the table. Her immediate answer was yes.

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While grants and donations are funding the buildout of the project, Coltrane hopes to secure federal and state funding to operate it in the short term. Ultimately, the goal is to open another satellite location in Dorchester County that could help offset operating costs for the Rosenwald location.

The Children’s Museum downtown sees roughly 130,000 visitors per year. The museum is currently trying to raise $4 million to revamp the downtown location. While expanding the downtown location is out of the question, Coltrane hopes they can reconfigure and maximize the space with new and refreshed exhibits.

“Because we operate within the constrictions of a historic building, the only way to grow is to make the best of the space we have and add additional locations,” Coltrane said.

Business

Investing in the future

The project was funded through investments totaling $300,000 made by Boeing Co. and other local philanthropists.

Erin Fisher, a senior manager for the 787 maker's community engagement efforts, said that efforts to develop a workforce pipeline can't just target high school and college-age students. She said it starts by pushing children to embrace problem-solving and science- and math-based concepts, with the hope that it will set them down a career path in advanced manufacturing or engineering, she said.

“Our work with the Children's Museum is a way to support education from cradle to career,” she said. “This is an opportunity to engage with students on the early childhood level to spark the curiosity that leads to an innovative mindset. That is what we're looking for in our workforce and teammates here at Boeing South Carolina.”

Over the last five years, Boeing has donated $925,000 toward the museum's makerspace, pop-up tinker shop and mobile STEM lab programs that expand the museum’s outreach beyond Charleston county.

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Mission first

Coltrane said that she is proud that the first satellite location is driven by being of service to the community rather than revenue generation.

“Mission and margin drive each other forward, but growth is not just defined by the bottom line," Coltrane said. "The priority now is to see growth in the number of children we can reach across the Lowcountry and the types of services we can offer them outside of our downtown hub.”

James hailed the project as an example of the good that can come from public-private partnerships, when the community, town, county, public officials and companies unite for the same goal.

“We are very fortunate to have a multiple-pronged approach to what we can offer,” James said. “We'll be able to demonstrate history from 1925 through now. This place has always been about empowering our young folk, so now we're able to do the same thing, especially with the utilization of the Children's Museum.”

Visits to tour the historic classrooms are currently by appointment only. Once the museum outpost comes online, there will be more regular hours, according to James.

“Having a partner, purpose and a vision was the catalyst that got the movement going on this,” James said. “We hope that other rural areas and small towns will see the benefit of this and will duplicate the efforts happening here.”