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Dorchester County citizens had an opportunity to offer feedback and voice concerns about streetscape improvements planned for Ladson Road at the Aug. 22 public meeting held at the Dorchester County Council Chambers.

Dorchester County personnel and consultant representatives from SeamonWhiteside, a local engineering and design firm, were on hand to discuss the project with citizens as a group and individually, as requested.

The well-attended meeting showcased a lively discussion during which citizens expressed their concerns, fears and frustrations over the project plans to date, as well as what is seen by many present as current problems that could be made worse going forward.

Construction of dedicated turn lanes at key intersections and installation of raised, landscaped medians with plantings and street lights are the key elements of the project. Video displays and print handouts were provided at the meeting to illustrate the plans under consideration. The project will impact the section of Ladson Road from the termination of the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) Dorchester Road Safety Improvement project to Coopers Ridge Boulevard.

“Last night’s meeting was the first step in soliciting public input, and we received many good comments that will be considered as we continue to move the design forward,” said Daniel Prentice, Deputy County Administrator. The meeting followed the DOT public comment requirements, according to Prentice.

The Ladson Road Streetscape Project is part of the Oakbrook Redevelopment Plan which was established in 2019. The plan outlines a comprehensive, multi-agency plan to revitalize the Oakbrook area. Funding comes from Tax Increment Financing (TIF), a method for financing redevelopment in blighted, conservation and sprawl areas of counties. TIF utilizes incremental increases in assessed value and property taxes to fund projects.

The price tag for the overall Oakbrook Redevelopment Plan now stands at $5 million, but county officials insist that it is not represented by a tax increase or impact fee.

“A TIF district is not a tax increase,” said Prentice. “The entities that levy millage (the rate at which property taxes are levied) partner to send tax dollars resulting from growth in assessments of new or improved buildings to the TIF fund which funds the public improvements. The public improvements, in turn, are used to continue to spur new private growth, increasing the overall vitality of the area.”

County personnel and officials projected their belief that by making the area more attractive for retail and restaurant activities, improving pedestrian and bike safety, improving infrastructure, reducing traffic and increasing safety and other upgrades, investment dollars will increase; new business and development will be established.

Presentation of the project leaned heavily on the aesthetic and beautification benefits to be realized, but county officials and staff also stressed improvement in safety as a major goal. “Data shows that safety will be improved by closing off the current open medians and guiding traffic through the use of dedicated turn lanes and restricting other turning movements due to the proposed medians,” said Prentice. “While one of the goals of the TIF district is beautification, the County believes that an additional positive outcome will be the function and safety of the corridor.”

Not everyone in attendance was convinced. Several citizens expressed frustration in their view that the county is giving priority to aesthetics over safety and functionality. Concerns voiced included existing poor access to certain businesses, which could increase under the plan; traffic load; difficulty of large and service vehicles to navigate turns; challenges of cyclists; maintenance costs associated with the use of plants versus other materials for division; and problems arising out of the overlap of traffic routes between counties.

One business owner, whose business requires drop-off traffic, complained that attracting new business and traffic, when existing businesses are negatively impacted by current road and traffic design, is not in the best interest of businesses along Ladson Road.

Proponents of the plan defended medians as a more modern design consideration for roadway construction and advocated for guiding traffic to dedicated turn lanes.

“Access management studies show that the true overall impact is not negative, although acclimation to the changes is required due to new traffic patterns,” said Prentice.

Construction on the Ladson Road Streetscape Project is slated to begin mid-2023, according to county personnel. Additional information on the Ladson Road project, Oakbrook Redevelopment Plan and TIF can be found on the Dorchester County website at https://www.dorchestercountysc.gov.

Public comments, written or oral, are invited.

About 20 years after the purchase of his Summerwood subdivision residence on Poplar Grove Place in Ladson, family man Duane Dickerson has yet to solve intense spells of flooding that affect his home, as his attempts to seek assistance from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers haven’t produced any tangible results to date.

“The street started to flood almost immediately, almost a couple of months after I bought it.” recalled Dickerson, a construction worker who has never considered moving as many of his former neighbors have due in part to the great school districts his three children are part of.

The issue, he says, stems from a “clogged up” waterway known as Eagle Creek that runs along the Sawmill Branch Trail in area near the Berlin G. Myers Parkway.

“They call it a creek, but it looks more like a ditch,” describes Dickerson, who said that soot at the bottom of the canal is sparking an overflow of water seeping into people’s homes, particularly during hurricanes and other major storms.

State Senator Sean Bennett told the Journal Scene that he previously met with Dickerson in 2019 to assess Eagle Creek.

“I saw the concerns he had. It needs to be cleaned. There is a spillway there that is not operating,” stated Bennett, who also pointed out that Dorchester County cannot do anything to remedy the dilemma since the creek is under jurisdiction of the Army Corps. In fact, no work can be initiated without the permission of the federal agency.

The local elected official further mentioned that the Army Corps actually does have a plan to clear out the reported clogging, but the group cannot access the necessary government funding to carry out their project.

While the Journal Scene’s phone calls to the U.S. Army Corps haven’t been returned, a Channel 2 News report confirms Bennett’s analysis by citing claims on the part of an Army Corps program manager, who observed that he can’t secure the necessary federal dollars to reduce flooding to local homes and infrastructure.

The Army Corps rep broached the idea of digging a retention pond to mitigate overflows with Channel 2.

Dickerson, on the other hand, promised the Journal Scene that he could fix the problem in two months by himself with one piece of equipment.

“It would look a lot different, but I can make the water move from point A to point B and it would never come through the neighborhood, it would ride right through the woods like it’s supposed to.”

Meanwhile Dickerson and his neighbors have seen an uptick in flooding in 2022, as anywhere from 5-26 inches of water has infiltrated people’s homes, driveways and garage areas.

The worst case of it occurred in 2015, recounted Dickerson, when the “1,000-year Flood” produced water levels so deep that people couldn’t move their vehicles, resulting in about 30-35 cars that were lost.

Another hindrance in dealing with the Army Corps, according to Dickerson and Bennett, is the constant turnover at the top.

Dickerson summed up the matter by adding: “This project is long overdue. Somebody from DOT told me it will happen one day, they just don’t know when. We’re probably going to flood 100 more times before it happens.”

LADSON — A new recreational vehicle vendor is setting up shop in the Charleston area.

RV One Superstores, owned by RV Retailers LLC of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., plans to build a new location on Treeland Drive in Ladson near the College Park Road exit at Interstate 26.

An affiliate of the company bought the nearly 16-acre site next to American Biker in late August for $2.95 million, according to Berkeley County land records.

Under plans filed with state environmental regulators, the retailer is applying for a stormwater permit for 13.3 acres. The wooded site abuts a creek, but the applicant says no wetlands will be disturbed. Part of the property to the east where wetlands are located is not included in the development, according to the company’s site plan.

The company doesn’t have a target date for construction to begin, but the new recreational vehicle store is expected to open sometime in 2021, according to RV Retailers President CEO Jon Ferrando.

“Charleston is an excellent, growing market, and we look forward to creating new jobs in the area and selling and servicing RVs for customers living in and traveling through Charleston,” Ferrando said.

The size of the sales and service center has not been determined, but a store that recently broke ground in Tyler, Texas, is about 24,000 square feet. The number of employees can range between 25 and 60.

RV One offers 11 locations in the U.S., including another one in South Carolina in Myrtle Beach, which opened in July 2019. Others are in Florida, New York and Iowa.

RV Retailers LLC is the parent of seven other recreational vehicle companies.

They include Camper Clinic, CCRV, Cousins RV, Explorer USA, Motor Home Specialists, Sunny’s RV and Tom’s Camperland.

In South Carolina the company also owns Sunny’s RV in Duncan near Spartanburg.

Altogether, RV Retailers operates 34 dealerships offering more than 35 brands in eight states. In addition to the Palmetto State, they are located in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, New York, North Carolina and Texas.

Profits are mixed, but South Carolina-based banks are holding their own on the deposit front based on the early returns.

The first few out of the gate in issuing their quarterly updates hauled in a combined $958 million from new and existing customers in the first quarter of the year, led by a nine-figure inflow at United Community Bank.

The issue of how much money federally insured lenders are entrusted with to redeploy into the economy came into sharp focus last week, when a problem child of the industry released its latest results. First Republic revealed that its customers withdrew a stunning $102 billion last quarter, driven largely by concerns about the San Francisco bank’s health after two other financial institutions bit the dust in mid-March.

The so-called contagion from the failures didn’t show up in the first-quarter figures for the Palmetto State.

Greenville-based United Community, for instance, reported that its customer deposits increased $525 million through March 31 across its multistate franchise, not including the accounts it picked up from a recent acquisition, while crosstown rival Southern First added $293 million.

Myrtle Beach’s South Atlantic pulled in more than $40 million in new money for the same period at its 12 offices up and down the coast, bringing the total to $1.26 billion.

“While deposits and liquidity in the banking system have been called into focus in recent weeks, our deposits grew 13.2 percent ... on an annualized basis,” CEO Wayne Wicker said Tuesday.

Lexington-based First Community Bank was singing a similar tune.

“A strength of our bank has been and continues to be the value of our deposit franchise,” CEO Michael Crapps said earlier this month, pointing to a nearly $35 million influx.

“Notably, while the banking industry experienced some turmoil in March ... we actually saw some nice deposit growth,” he added.

Other community banks around the state that reported gains included First Reliance of Florence, up $38 million, Myrtle Beach’s Coastal Carolina National, up $25 million, and Walhalla-based Community First, up $13 million.

“We continue to experience solid growth metrics as we successfully navigate the current volatility in the overall banking industry,” Coastal Carolina National CEO Laurence Bolchoz said.

Lenders across South Carolina and the rest of the country were awash in cash during the Covid-19 crisis, as consumers and businesses socked away government aid money into savings and checking accounts. As of last July 1, the 76 banks with offices in the state reported $128 billion in deposits, up 9 percent from a year earlier, according to the latest government figures.

It wasn’t long ago that those funds weren’t earning much. Banks for years were able to pay miserly interest rates to their depositors, typically less than 1 percent, reflecting the Federal Reserve’s long campaign to keep borrowing costs low.

The calculus has changed, driven by the sudden burst of inflation.

The Fed got the ball rolling more than a year ago. It has cranked up its benchmark borrowing rate nine times since March 2022, taking it from nearly zero to roughly 5 percent, in an effort to cool the economy down. Meanwhile, savers have had to dip into their accounts to help pay for higher-priced goods.

Most lenders are now offering higher returns to attract and retain yield-chasing depositors — and it’s starting to pinch the bottom line.

United Community, the largest bank headquartered in South Carolina, noted that its “net interest margin” — the difference between what it takes in from borrowers and pays out in interest — contracted 3.6 percent last quarter from the end of 2022 “due to increased deposit costs,” according to CEO Lynn Harton.

Similarly, Southern First reported a decline in that key metric, saying it was driven by an “increase in interest expense on our deposit accounts related to the Federal Reserve’s ... interest rate hikes during the past 12 months.”

It was much the same at South Atlantic and First Community.

In Charleston, the Bank of South Carolina said it missed its profitability target for the first quarter, even though its earnings rose almost 9 percent from a year earlier.

“This outcome is the result of precipitous increases in our deposit costs to meet the intense competition amongst banks, brokerages and the U.S. Treasury,” CEO Fleetwood Hassell said in a written statement. “Although loan interest income has increased, our margins remain thin.”

He added that the prospects for more increases by the Fed “is uncertain.”

The short-term answer will come Wednesday, when the central bank wraps up its next policy meeting. It’s widely expected to bump up rates another notch.

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LADSON, S.C. (WCBD)- The annual Coastal Carolina Fair is underway at Exchange Park in Ladson.

Most fairgoers have their eyes and stomachs on fair food for the first day.

“They always have good food and it’s just a good time to spend with family. They have a little arts and crafts center where you can see the students’ local talents,” said Jasmine Kelly.

“Sausage dogs and French fries. Walk around and look and see what’s going on,” said Woody Barsha.

One of the new food items on the menu is an Oreo cookie crusted turkey leg.

“No I don’t think so I’ll stick to French fries,” said Barsha.

“I can’t eat that much, but I will have an elephant ear,” said Kelly.

There are 10 new rides this year as well. One of them is a Ferris Wheel that’s 12 stories tall and comes from The Netherlands.

Fair organizers say that those new attraction and food items are great additions, but having a full-scale fair is also something to celebrate.

“We’re really excited about opening up because this is the first really big open fair we’ve had since COVID-19 has happened. We say ‘New in 22,’ and that’s what we’re doing because we have brand new rides, we have many new food vendors so we’re really excited about starting the year off right,” said Gary Leonard from the office of Media and Publicity Relations at the Coastal Carolina Fair.

Most families make the fair a tradition, but it’s even more special for Dan Caskey.

“Today’s my birthday. Every year I have a party and bring this to town to share with everybody else. It’s a great tradition. We love coming out here and having a fun time with the family,” said Caskey.

The fair runs for 12 days and hours of operation can be found here. A calendar of events can be found here.

LADSON, S.C. (WCIV) — It's that time of year again! The annual Coastal Carolina Fair kicks off this week in Ladson with some brand new rides and foods.

The fair opens this Thursday and Friday from 3 to 9 p.m.

This year's fair will run from Thursday, Oct. 27 to Sunday, Nov. 6.

RIDES

There will be around 65 rides in total this year, including some new ones.

Thrill seekers will be excited to see the largest rollercoaster AND Ferris wheel they've had yet. The Ferris wheel is over 100-ft tall.

“We’ve got a brand-new carnival. It’s a big deal for us. We had a very long relationship with the last one, and this one had some opportunities to bring some new coasters, rollercoasters in. Some great rides, and we just couldn’t pass it up,” said Coastal Carolina Fair’s media relations spokesperson, Jay Wallace.

The Coastal Carolina Fair returns Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022. ABC News 4 reporter Sean Mahoney spoke to organizers about fair rides. (WCIV)

FOOD

A wide variety of tasty treats are on the menus: barbeque sandwiches, cinnamon rolls, bread pudding, funnel cakes, deep fried brownies- and the list goes on and gets more creative.

Some other options will include funnel cakes, elephant ears, and award-winning jalapeno corndogs.

Be sure to look out for the Oreo-encrusted turkey leg!

ENTERTAINMENT

In addition to rides and food, fairgoers will find lots of other entertainment.

The Coastal Carolina Fair returns Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022. ABC News 4 reporter Sean Mahoney spoke to organizers about the petting zoo. (WCIV)

TICKETS

Coastal Carolina Fair officials suspended online ticket sales until further notice after fraudulent activity was detected Wednesday.

Tickets can be purchased at Circle K stores or at the fair gates for the time being.

Credit and cash are accepted at the gate ticket booths, but only credit is accepted at the kiosks located at each entry gate.

Fair officials said do not buy tickets from people that approach you or posted online.

Check the fair's calendar for special discount days for seniors and more.

TICKET PRICES THROUGH OCTOBER 26TH:

TICKET PRICES BEGINNING OCTOBER 27TH:

The Coastal Carolina Fair returns Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022. ABC News 4 reporter Sean Mahoney spoke to organizers about fair safety, attendance expectations, and charities helped. (WCIV)

SAFETY

The use of metal detectors and a clear plastic bag policy will continue for this season, and that there will be plenty of security. Some of it will be around the clock during the fair’s two-week run.

“The No. 1 rule we have around here that tells us if we’ve had a good fair is if we’ve had a safe fair," said Coastal Carolina Fair’s media relations spokesperson Jay Wallace.

All rides are inspected by multiple agencies, Grimm said.