What’s with huge cranes in Port Royal? Residents demand answers and accountability

Residents of Port Royal are turning up the volume in their criticism of a plan to repurpose and beautify an ugly industrial waterfront in Port Royal — a project initially marketed as one of the preeminent residential, commercial and deep water marina ports on the entire East Coast. Meanwhile, the Town Council is consulting with its attorney to see if the plan continues to be in accordance with with the development agreement.

Safe Harbor Marinas, the world’s largest marina owner and operator, bought some 2 miles of Port of Port Royal waterfront almost 2 years ago for $20 million with plans to build what company officials described as a world-class marina and waterfront housing that they said would jibe with the town’s existing neighborhoods. Residents could hardly wait.

Now they’re questioning Safe Harbor plans for all-rental housing in the northern sections of the development. And they are irked by massive cranes scarring the skyline over Battery Creek. Those cranes are working in the areas slated to become the boatyard and marina, but they are assembling docks that have nothing to do with the redevelopment of the former South Carolina Ports Authority property.

“There is no escaping the sight of them,” Tricia Fidrych, a Port Royal resident, said of the cranes. “No matter where you are, you see gargantuan metal industrial structures.”

She says the town needs to hold Safe Harbor’s feet to the fire and that the developer needs to be more transparent with its plans, a view that other residents have shared in recent weeks.

To be sure, Safe Harbor, which did not respond to a request for comment, has done a considerable amount of site preparation, including demolition of old concrete structures that had littered the property and refurbishing some buildings as office space. The developer has also applied for permits for the marina and released a preliminary housing plan. But no physical work has begun yet on the housing or marina or a promenade along the waterfront, a key feature of the project that will give residents access to views along Battery Creek.

The marina and housing are planned on 50 acres of 317 acres Safe Harbor bought in November 2021 from Grey Ghost Properties. At the time of the purchase, Jason Hogg, chief investment officer for Safe Harbor, promised a “world class boating destination.”

“This,” said Fidrych, the resident who complained at two recent Town Council meetings, “is not looking like a world class boating destination.”

Here’s the status of the multiple features of the project and why residents are raising concerns:

Marina and boatyard

Safe Harbor Marina is proposing a full-service marina to provide berthing space for seasonal and transient recreational boaters in the Port Royal area — and those traversing the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.

The commercial marina would have 151 dedicated wet slips, 3,284 linear feet of side-tie dockage, 40 floating jet docks and marine utilities, according to information on file with the U.S Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Environmental Health and Control. A floating harbormaster’s office will be located on the floating docks.

The dock plan for the marina has been submitted to the DHEC and the Army Corps of Engineers, Scheaffer Watt, a project manager for Watt Inc., a construction management company working for Safe Harbor, told the Town Council during a meeting in August.

Safe Harbor is now awaiting approval of the dock configuration before proceeding with construction, Watt said.

Meanwhile, huge cranes have been working for months in the boatyard and marina area assembling docks. What bothers residents is that those docks are not for use in the new marina planned in Port Royal. Rather, Safe Harbor Marinas is using the Port Royal property, for now, as a staging area to assemble docks that are shipped for use at other locations under its management. A subcontractor called Harbor Masters that is handling the work has set up an office on Paris Avenue.

“That’s not really what we envisioned looking at indefinitely,” Councilman Darryl Owens said.

Mayor Joe DeVito pressed Watt, the construction manager, for an answer in August on when the marina work would begin and how much longer the work putting together docks for use at other sites would go on in Port Royal. Watt said as soon as the permits are approved, “we will begin to construct those docks” for the Port Royal project.

Safe Harbor Marinas has a temporary use permit from the town to do the work putting together docks, DeVito said. But it has no timeline on how long the work can continue.

Boat storage

Safe Harbor is planning to significantly increase the amount of “dry stack” boat storage and related services needed to service boats.

Unlike traditional wet storage at a marina, dry stack storage involves storing your boats out of the water on racks, which allow them to be stacked on top of each other.

A dry stack building with a 150-boat capacity already exists with docks. Additional outdoor dry stack rack storage is planned that would accommodate another 150 boats.

Safe Harbor has torn down the landmark 48,000-square-foot single-story concrete building on the waterfront that once was the centerpiece of the South Carolina Ports Authority property. It saved the 102,000 square-foot over-water concrete wharf. A hotel is not going in on that terminal slab, said Watt, the construction manager, responding to rumors. Rather, that space will be used as maneuvering space for the marine forklifts that support launching and retrieval of the boats.

A lean-to has been built on the edge of the current dry stack building. That will be divided into 11 spaces for tradesmen that work on boats. For example, a boat could be pulled in and placed on a rack and have detail work done.

Housing property

The first phase of the housing plans call for around 200 townhouses and some 30 single-family homes on the north end of the site. Charleston-based The Beach Company, which is overseeing the housing portion of the project, said it decided to build rentals because of the unanticipated high cost of preparing the site, which has a steep grade and needs cleanup because of pollution along an old rail line.

The units, even though they would be rented, “would fit the fabric” of Port Royal, company officials have, because they would maintain the community’s high architectural standards. They would be rented with annual leases.

Residents and council members are not buying the argument that “build-to-rent” units are necessary because of the contamination issues. And a project entirely made up of rental units would not fit the fabric of the town, they add.

“If you literally cannot put down roots because of soil contamination and metaphorically you cannot put down roots because ‘we are hoping for at least a year’s lease’ how does that fit the fabric of Port Royal?,” said Fidrych, the Port Royal resident, calling the housing a “wall of townhouses.”

Legal questions

At the close of a work session last Wednesday, the five-member Town Council voted to close the doors to the public. The stated purpose was to get legal advice “related to Port of Port Royal Development Agreement and PUD (Planned Unit Development).”

“We had our attorney go through the development agreement and say where they (Safe Harbor Marinas) are in relationship to the development agreement,” said Mayor DeVito, adding he could not share details of what was said.

The development agreement between Port Royal and Safe Harbor says construction on the marina, Bluff neighborhood and promenade should commence between 2021 and 2023, with the entire development anticipated to take place over 5 to 7 years. Housing demand and the economy could affect the schedule, the agreement says.

The development agreement is a master conceptual plan of what the property should look like, with timelines, and a guiding master plan for the developer, said DeVito.

A planned unit development, another document, is guiding the specifics of each of the different areas within the property, DeVito said. Those development areas are Ribaut and Bluff villages, where the residential housing is planned; Marina Village, which includes the marina and boatyard; Port Village, which allows mixed uses including a hotel and restaurants; and civic open space.

The concerns are being raised as an election for mayor looms Nov. 7.

Councilman Kevin Phillips, who is running against DeVito for mayor, said the town needs to use the tools in the development agreement and the PUD “to hold Safe Harbor accountable.” “We just need to be tougher on them,” he says. Safe Harbor, he says, is “trying to bamboozle us” on the rental housing, and taking advantage of the town by using the port to build marina docks for others. That work, he says, should be stopped until Safe Harbor and the town sit down and have a conversation on how to move forward.

For his part, DeVito said town officials and legal council continue to review the situation.

“We’re doing our annual review and making sure they are following and meeting all of the deadlines that are required and we will continue collaborative negotiations to obtain the development that fits the fabric of Port Royal,” DeVito said.

Safe Harbor’s purchase of the property from Grey Ghost Properties in December 2021 was welcomed initially, DeVito said, because it had deeper pockets.

But it’s been almost 2 years since the sale and the town is concerned about how long it is taking for some of the components of the development to get going, particularly the residential, DeVito added.

“It just seems to take a little longer than we all would like,” DeVito said.

Nothing can be built on the property until specific “master plans” are submitted to the town for each of the multiple sections of the property, which carry different uses and requirements, DeVito said.

New shrimp docks

The town recently removed its crumbling old shrimp docks with plans to replace the docks with a new configuration. After talking with shrimpers, the town is looking at floating docks with a fender system rather than a fixed pier, said Van Willis, the town’s manager. The dock also will be positioned farther out into the channel giving the boats more maneuverability.

“It will be more suitable for the use,” Councilman Jerry Ashmore said.