Build it and they will come – renters of new luxury apartments at Shelter Cove Towne Centre and shoppers at the redeveloped Pineland Station, that is.
The construction progress of the 240-unit luxury rental apartment complex at Shelter Cove Towne Centre continues unabated.
Meanwhile, the transformation of the decades-old shopping center into the new Sea Turtle Marketplace, about 4 miles north on William Hilton Parkway, has resumed after a six-month delay.
What one sees now behind the Centre is a concrete slab of a building. Unattractive certainly, but soon to be out of sight and surrounded by the apartment complex being built around it on the east side of a 5-acre linear park.
“It will disappear,” said Phil Madhere, senior vice president of Grand Oak Construction, sister company of developer Southeastern Development Associates in Augusta, Ga., formerly Blanchard & Calhoun. “You won’t even know it’s there. The apartments are going to surround the parking deck.”
Last July, the company placed more than 200 pile foundations to support the parking garage. Construction began in August and was completed within two months. The pouring of footings, constructing of stem walls and laying of underground electrical on the first wing of the Shelter Cove East 1 apartments began the week of Feb. 20, Madhere said. The first tenants will move into their units in November. Construction of the second parking garage will begin next month.
The comprehensive plan calls for two buildings with five wings each, with each wing comprising 24 two-bedroom apartment units. Projected completion of all 240 apartment units is March 2018, Madhere said. Residential units of Shelter Cove East 2 will be situated around Veterans Memorial Park.
Although the project has experienced some delays along the way, “My deadline has always been November 2017, and that still holds true,” Madhere said.
Tommy Smith and his Sandcastle Constructors Inc. of Hilton Head were forced to stop work in May 2016 on the complete makeover of Pineland Station, built in 1975. The developer, Virginia-based Wheeler Real Estate Co., had hit a financial snag and had to restructure its books.
Within a month after Hurricane Matthew blew into town on Oct. 8 and Wheeler had refinanced the project, Sandcastle was back on the 147,000-square-foot job.
“We are back full swing, under construction,” said Smith, Sandcastle’s president and chief operating officer. “Our civil work (parking lot, draining structures, water and sewer lines, and other core infrastructure elements) progress is about 50 percent complete, and everything is back on go and on schedule.”
Smith said he is rescheduling the original timetable but expects to finish his company’s work later this year. The cost of the redevelopment is about $25 million, said Wheeler senior leasing agent Denbeigh Marchant.
About 90 percent of the projected total of 15 to 17 tenants have signed leases or are in negotiations. He said he expects full occupancy of space early next year.
Smith said all the slabs have been poured for the junior anchors, PetSmart and Kitchen & Company (each about 18,000 square feet), and they’re currently in the permit process for two outbuildings on the Hwy. 278 side of the project. Existing anchors SteinMart, which received a facelift, and Starbucks have remained open throughout the reconstruction.
Supply store West Marine is relocating from another island location to a separate building adjacent to SteinMart.
Upon completion, Sea Turtle Marketplace will showcase seven buildings: four large box spaces, two buildings with four to five tenants each, and a corner pad. Although Marchant would not confirm, it has been suggested that a major European grocery will open on an out-parcel near the Marketplace.
Dean Rowland is a veteran senior editor and freelance writer.
