Santee Cooper sells $18.3M in land at 2 SC industrial parks
- By Jodi Shafto jshafto@postandcourier.com
- Apr 20, 2022
A committee of Santee Cooper board members this week approved the $18.3 million sale of seven undeveloped lots the utility owns in a pair of industrial parks in Berkeley and Horry counties and gave the go-ahead to the first commercial business to locate at the Camp Hall Commerce Park near Ridgeville.
Most of the money — $18.1 million — will come from the sales of four industrial sites totaling about 104 acres at the state-owned utility’s Camp Hall site.
Another $194,850 will come from the sale of the final three lots totaling almost 22 acres at the Ascott Valley Industrial Park off S.C. Highway 22 in Conway. Moncks Corner-based Santee Cooper has owned the 220-acre business hub in rural Horry County since 2011.
Indianapolis-based Pure Development, which broke ground this month on a 1.1 million-square-foot warehouse near Jedburg, is purchasing two of the Camp Hall lots at $283,000 per acre. It plans to build a 427,000-square-foot speculative warehouse — meaning no tenant has been lined up — at a 27.66-acre site across from the Volvo Cars manufacturing campus.
The other Camp Hall sites are being sold to: Magnus Development of Columbia, which plans to build a 150,000-square-foot warehouse on 10.5 acres; and Fresh Continents of Greensboro, N.C., which plans to build a cold-storage warehouse on 64.5 acres.
Santee Cooper took ownership of the 6,800-acre Camp Hall property in 2015 as part of a deal to lure Volvo to South Carolina. About 2,800 acres was given to the carmaker, with the rest set aside for a mixed-use development that would combine space for industrial users, commercial businesses and recreation purposes, such as hiking and biking trails.
At the heart of Camp Hall is Avian Commons — a “village center” with services catering to employees of the nearby corporate tenants. Mount Pleasant-based Refuel Operating Co., the owner and operator of gas stations and convenience stores, is the first company to buy into the center, purchasing 1.65 acres for $1.25 million.
The Horry County sales will be used for a trio of expansions.
Freeman Bisi Investors LLC bought 13.3 acres and S&H Investments Group bought 4.56 acres to expand their operations. The Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corp., which is in charge of attracting industry to the Grand Strand county, bought 3.74 acres to double the size of an existing building to 100,000 square feet.
“These sales will complete the sales of industrial sites within Ascott Valley,” said Dan Camp, Santee Cooper’s vice president of real estate.
All of the land deals require approval by the S.C. Joint Bond Review Committee, a panel of legislators that oversees state agency financial commitments, before they can be finalized.
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