New details on the $2 BILLION Magnolia Landing plan

City of Charleston · Board of Zoning Appeals (Zoning)
🏗️ 175-unit accommodation use at 194 Cannon Street clears BZA after legal question resolved
The special exception for a 175-unit hotel/accommodation use at 194 Cannon Street was approved after a prior deferral to allow staff to confirm with legal counsel that 2017 code standards apply under the site's PUD. The Preservation Society issued a letter of no objection following the legal confirmation. The previous BZA approval had expired due to a change in the development team, requiring this reapplication.

City of Charleston · Board of Zoning Appeals (Zoning)
🏠 Infill home on 822-sq-ft East Side lot derailed again by noticing error after lot size correction
A second deferral was required for 108 Cooper Street after the architect revealed at the hearing that the actual lot size is 822 square feet, not the 1,482 square feet stated in the public notice. The larger discrepancy from the required 2,500 square feet rendered the notice legally insufficient a second time, preventing the board from acting. The earliest possible hearing is now mid-August, compounding delays for the owner.

Charleston County School District · CCSD Education Foundation Board
🏫 Foundation appoints interim executive director and advances key organizational steps
The CCSD Education Foundation Board appointed Catherine Templeton as interim executive director on a unanimous vote while the foundation awaits IRS 501(c) approval, which is required before the foundation can legally receive donations. The board also shifted its regular meeting time to the third Thursday of each month at 4:00 p.m., approved a short-term strategic planning roadmap, and amended its bylaws to allow the foundation to serve children in public-private partnership schools in alignment with CCSD's legal obligations under state law.

Charleston County · Charleston County Council
🚛 Half-cent transportation sales tax advances to November ballot after three floor amendments
Charleston County Council gave third and final reading to a half-cent sales tax referendum ordinance totaling approximately $4.25 billion in identified projects, passing 7-1. Last-minute amendments added $17 million for a North Charleston noise wall (offset by removing $12 million from Ladson Road and Miles Jameson Road), inserted Huger Street bike-ped improvements by shifting $2 million from the downtown transit route study, and added complete streets language requiring all projects to 'consider' multimodal access. Councilman Moody cast the lone dissenting vote, arguing true infrastructure spending is closer to 47% of the total rather than the advertised 63%, and criticizing the Green Belt program for already exceeding its goals while seeking additional funds.

City of North Charleston · City Council
🚧 Council members clash over which neighborhoods get sound barrier wall funding
A council member publicly thanked Charleston County Council members Teddy Prior and Henry Darby for securing funding for a sound barrier wall in their district along the interstate. Dr. Ganoway Paisley immediately objected, arguing that Midland Park residents were left out and vowing to fight for a second wall. A separate council member cautioned that no funding is actually secured until voters approve the half-cent sales tax extension on the November 2026 ballot.

City of Charleston · Technical Review Committee
🏗️ Youth learning golf facility at 10 Henry Tecklenburg Drive advances with paperwork comments only
The proposed youth learning golf facility at 10 Henry Tecklenburg Drive moved forward without a required return, as all reviewers issued only paperwork-level comments. Key outstanding items include finalizing tree mitigation numbers (with a plan note to invite city staff for a site visit to assess additional plantings), clarifying street tree placement relative to the right-of-way line, completing the traffic study, and obtaining signed-and-sealed survey sheets. Final DRB approval remains pending staff review.

City of Charleston · Technical Review Committee
🏗️ 657 King Street hotel advances with paperwork comments amid ongoing height settlement negotiations
The proposed hotel at 657 King Street moved forward with paperwork-only TRC comments after the project team confirmed that City Council approved a mediation settlement regarding building height in late April 2026, though parties continue working on a potential amendment to that settlement. Ground-floor café and restaurant uses were confirmed as accessory to the hotel and not separately leasable. A key unresolved question is whether the off-site DOT-permitted parking lot under the elevated bridge structure requires separate city stormwater review, which could trigger additional comments affecting the hotel plans.

This week I attended the third City of Charleston Design Center open house, and the project being showcased was Magnolia Landing. I had the chance to discuss the project with one of the planners and learned quite a bit about what’s currently in the works and what still needs answers. This was the first time I got the phasing explained and what to expect next.

Here is everything I took away.

Phase 1

Phase 1 includes the redevelopment of Braswell Street, connecting the waterfront over to Milford Street and King Street.  Heriot Street gets extended into Magnolia Landing, officially finishing the bridge to nowhere.

The residential piece is split among 3 builders. Toll Brothers is building the townhomes, DRB Homes is building the single-family homes, and Woodfield Development is handling the multifamily apartments.  Model home construction for Toll Brothers’ townhomes is targeted to begin around May or June of 2027, once the streets are in and there is something to sell against.

On the commercial side, Phase 1 includes an office building, retail space that Woodfield is also handling, a grocery store, and 4 waterfront food and beverage venues. The grocer is signed, but the name is being kept confidential. I asked and was told they could not say yet. 

For amenities, the plan shows a large waterfront park with dockage and a smaller park at the entrance. There is also a potential pickleball facility in the works, though when I asked details about it and what company would run it, I was told "I don't think that's set just yet." 

The 5-Year Timeline

This was the part that surprised me most, and I want to quote it directly rather than paraphrase, because the specificity is the point.

I asked what Phase 1 looks like in 5 years and was told: ”This should be fully leased. That grocery should have people running around in it. Those (pointing to retail/restaurant spaces) should be open every day, all week long. Offices should be occupied."

He also put a number on the wider build-out, projecting the core of the project could be finished in "less than seven years."

What Comes After Phase 1

Everything past Phase 1 is market driven, though he said a few pieces could move up.

There are 2 hotels in the plan. One could land inside the 5-year window because of interest he described as serious: "We're talking to them about that now." The second hotel site does not have an anchor yet.

The yacht club and additional multifamily and residential are later stage, developing as Phase 1 continues to build out. The yacht club's final form is undetermined. He laid out 3 possibilities: a full marina, a boat club with slips, or a pool club with memberships open to the public. The stated goal is to be more accessible than the existing exclusive yacht clubs in Charleston.

For the housing projects after Phase 1,  that depends on the market and on what the banks are doing at that point of time. He noted condos are not being actively funded right now, so the rest of the residential will most likely be apartments.

On affordable housing, he said "at some point, the city's got to get motivated and get affordable housing under construction." There was no timeline attached to that.

Traffic, Access, and the Bridge To Nowhere

If you have followed this project at all, you know the traffic question is the whole ballgame. I asked about it and got a long answer.

The planner I spoke with was part of the firm that designed the bridge that everyone calls the bridge to nowhere, and he is not a fan of the nickname: "every time it's referred to that my skin just kind of crawls." His point was that the bridge was always designed to serve Magnolia and to pull traffic off King Street. It will connect Heriot Street to the interstate and to King Street.

Primary access comes through Braswell Street and Milford Street, including a new traffic signal at Milford and King Street, and eventually through Hagood Street, so the traffic disperses across multiple points instead of funneling to one.

He said the traffic models show that at full build-out, with all the planned improvements and a high internal capture rate, meaning people living, working, and shopping inside the development, the road network operates at an "acceptable level of service or better."

Transit: the future Low County Rapid Transit line will stop at Hagood Street, not directly at Magnolia. The effort to get a stop at the project failed because the FTA considered the project too speculative when the LCRT planning was happening.

All streets are designed to be pedestrian and bike friendly, and a multi-use path along Heriot Street will connect to Rutledge Avenue.  A Lowline connection is possible but a gap exists, and closing it will take coordination with the city and with other projects in the future..

A water taxi came up as a realistic, market-supported option for connecting the waterfront to the rest of the Charleston peninsula, similar to the Daniel Island service.  But as of now it is just an idea.

Two older ideas did not survive. A direct railroad crossing at Heritage Street over to Meeting Street did not happen, which he attributed to the railroad company's inflexibility. Another was bringing I-26 down to grade level which was priced out years ago and never came to fruition.

The Housing Question

This is where my real estate brain took over, and I was not the only one. My friend Graham, who works in new construction home sales, was with me and asked the obvious question: "How do you figure out like what that market value is of it right off the bat?"

Graham and I kicked it around for a few minutes, and neither of us landed anywhere confident. What we kept circling back to was a tipping point of affordability, where pricing runs past what the Charleston market will carry. I want to be clear about what that was: 2 real estate agents thinking out loud in front of a rendering. Nobody from the project put a number on anything, and no pricing has been released.

So we started guessing with what we know about the townhomes. They are 4 stories and over 3000 sqft, looking to have rear-access tandem garages on the ground floor, which would solve for parking and flood elevation at the same time. Same disclaimer, and I am going to repeat it because I do not want to see our guess quoted back to me as fact: that was Graham and me speculating. It is not a confirmed design; I have not seen plans, and nobody at the open house said that is what is being built.  We were just looking at the possible renderings/elevation images.

Are these million-dollar townhomes?  Brand new, walkable to restaurants, retail, grocery, parks, and waterfront access with private amenities.  I don’t think it’s out of the question that at least some of them push over the million-dollar threshold.  But time will tell on that. What do you think?

The full residential plan calls for 158 townhomes and 72 single-family homes.  Nothing else was mentioned about the single-family homes, nor did we see any potential elevation sketches for those.   

Where Things Stand

Phase 1 has a 5-year horizon, builders assigned, and model homes targeted for mid-2027. The core is projected at under 7 years. 

Still open as of the open house: the grocery anchor, the pickleball operator and final form, tenants for the 4 waterfront restaurants, an anchor for the second hotel, the yacht club concept and membership model, any timeline for affordable housing, and price points for the Toll Brothers townhomes and the DRB single-family homes.

What are your thoughts on this project?  Let’s discuss it over in the Insider’s Community.  Click below to head over to the community, and if you haven’t joined yet, just use your email address these newsletters are sent to for FREE access.

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- 3 bed, 2.5 bath, 1820 sqft
- Cul-de-sac lot
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CHECK THE HOUSE OUT HERE

Dr. Joey Von Nessen of USC's Darla Moore School of Business presented his mid-year economic update to the Charleston Trident Association of Realtors this week, and his message was that Charleston's housing market has officially returned to normal. June sales were essentially even with pre-pandemic Junes, price appreciation has settled back into its historical range, and first half sales growth was the strongest since 2017. Mortgage rates are the sticking point. They are sitting around 6.5% and expected to stay between 6.0% and 6.5% through year-end, with no meaningful drop before 2027. Energy prices, not tariffs, are now the main driver keeping inflation elevated at 3.5%.

Here is the interesting wrinkle. South Carolina ranked number one in the nation for population growth last year, and Charleston came in 29th out of 430 metros, yet sales and prices are merely average. The reason is affordability. Days on market keep climbing because plenty of demand exists that simply cannot afford to act on it. Von Nessen's warning to policymakers was blunt: you can restrict supply, but you cannot restrict demand.

What this means for you. If you are buying, the rate you get this fall is probably the rate you get next spring, so waiting mostly costs you time rather than saving you money. Homes are sitting longer, which means more room to negotiate than you have had in years. If you are selling, price it right the first time. The days of listing high and letting a bidding war fix it are over.

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Until next week,
Bill Olson
Father • Husband • Realtor® • Civic Storyteller