Charleston County School District · Board of Trustees
🏫 Board approves Phase 6 capital project list and November 2026 ballot referendum
The board unanimously approved the 2029–2034 Phase 6 one-percent education capital improvement sales tax funding profile and project list, including a condition requiring East Cooper Montessori, Meeting Street at Brentwood, and Orange Grove Middle School to negotiate cost-share agreements before receiving funds. A separate amendment to guarantee Phase 6 stadium funding for James Island Charter High School failed. The board also unanimously approved placing the six-year tax extension on the November 3, 2026 ballot, with the estimated project cost for Orange Grove's new building alone at $95 million.

City of Charleston · Ad Hoc Rules Advisory Committee
📋 City adopts first mayoral portrait policy in 40 years with flexible funding language
With former Mayor Tecklenburg seeking to commission his official portrait, the committee established a formal policy for creating and displaying mayoral portraits in the council chamber — the first such policy since Mayor Riley's 40-year tenure made one unnecessary. After debate over locking in a specific dollar amount versus protecting against future political interference, the committee amended the resolution to leave the city's financial contribution as an amount to be determined by city council from time to time. Portraits will generally be arranged in chronological order, with Mayor Riley's portrait remaining in its current location as an exception.

Charleston has two major infrastructure projects heading toward construction on parallel tracks: the Lowline park and an early-stage restoration plan for Newmarket Creek. Chase Anderson, Senior Construction Project Manager for the City of Charleston's Capital Projects team, and Matt Fountain, the city's Director of Stormwater Management, provided updates on both.

Trail design

The trail will include two separated paths: a 12-foot-wide, two-way concrete bike lane and a 10-foot-wide concrete pedestrian path. For most of the trail's length, the two paths will be separated by planted areas, merging only at the beginning and end of the section. The plan also includes lighting infrastructure, with street lamps and police cameras included for security.

Soil work and stormwater strategy

A central part of the project involves removing most of the existing soil along the corridor and replacing it with a sandy soil mix. Anderson said this serves two purposes. First, it addresses soil contamination found along the old railroad line, which he said came "from the creosote ties and all the nasty chemicals they used back then." He said this contamination had been anticipated.

Second, the sandy soil is designed to function as what Anderson called a "sponge garden," allowing water to seep into the ground rather than run off. He said this approach was developed in coordination with the stormwater department as a way to avoid installing more extensive traditional stormwater infrastructure.

The landscape design supports this strategy as well, using vegetation intended to slow water down and keep it on site rather than a standard mowed lawn.

Status and timeline

The project team is finalizing construction drawing documents and coordinating with Dominion Energy on electrical drawings for the light poles. Final design elements and pricing are being compiled for a Technical Review Committee meeting this month.

Construction is expected to begin in the fall of 2026, starting with soil work at Mount Pleasant Street and moving south. The soil phase is projected to take a couple of months. Total construction duration is anticipated to run about 12 months, with completion expected around the fall of 2027.

Funding and future phases

The city has committed $15 million to the Mount Pleasant Street to Sheppard Street connection. The nonprofit Friends of the Lowline is fundraising separately for amenities such as pocket parks and the build-out of Bradford Park.

Future phases, including Bradford Park's development, depend on additional funding. The hope is that funds become available during the current construction window so work can continue without a gap. Development of the Lowline beyond Sheppard Street is being treated as a separate public-private effort, in which developers of adjacent properties would help fund and build those sections. The exact structure of that public-private partnership has not yet been determined.

Matt Fountain connected the upcoming Newmarket Creek project to the nearly complete King/Huger pump station, which is set to come online in early August 2026 and addresses flooding near Enston Home. He described the pump station as the first in a chain of linked projects that includes Newmarket Creek.

The problem

Newmarket Creek receives stormwater from a large, heavily developed area to its north, stretching from Morrison Drive almost to King Street. That area was developed before modern stormwater quality regulations were in place, so runoff flows directly into the creek. The creek is also tidally active: during high tides, water backs up and prevents drainage from low-lying properties, contributing to flooding.

Fountain said the creek's ecological health is poor, citing a NOAA rating that placed it among the worst-rated ecological health of creeks and marsh systems in this region. He said the creek channels are severely incised and that much of the natural marsh is hidden and degraded.

Strategy

The project aims to combine flood reduction, ecological restoration, and public access into one effort. Fountain described this as a deliberate strategy of "leveraging projects" to attract grant funding: rather than building, in his words, the "cheapest crappiest government version of a project," the city combines multiple goals such as flood control, ecology, and recreation, which he said makes the overall project more cost-effective and more appealing to a range of funding partners. He described the goal as restoring an urban marsh, reducing flooding, improving water quality, and creating public access to a natural feature currently viewed only as a drawback.

Funding and partners

The city worked with NOAA to develop the project plan and secured a $1 million grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, supplemented by $500,000 in city funding. That initial $1.5 million is intended to fund the project through a "permit-ready design," roughly 60% completion.

Key partners include the South Carolina Department of Transportation, which owns much of the relevant land, along with environmental stakeholders such as the Charleston Coastkeeper (referred to as "CCL") and The Nature Conservancy, as well as environmental regulatory agencies.

Status and timeline

The city has hired the engineering firm Thomas & Hutton to lead the design work and held the project's kickoff meeting the week of July 27, 2026. The design and coordination phase is expected to take under a year. Following completion of the 60% design, the project moves into a formal permitting phase, estimated to take about a year. Construction would follow permitting and is estimated to take another year.

Two questions remain open: whether the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation's typical follow-on construction grants, or other city and partner funding, will be needed to cover construction, and what the specific coordination plan with the Department of Transportation will look like to secure land access and agreements.

The Lowline's first phase is headed toward a Technical Review Committee review in August 2026, with construction targeted to start that fall and wrap up around fall 2027, backed by $15 million in committed city funding. Newmarket Creek is earlier in its process, with $1.5 million secured, an engineering firm under contract, and a permit-ready design expected within about a year, followed by roughly a year of permitting and another year of construction. Fountain noted the project could eventually connect to the Lowline, though that connection point was not detailed further in this update.

The main point of the overall Peninsula Plan is to have a plan for the northern parts of the peninsula that were left out of the last plan in 1999. Both the Lowline and Newmarket Creek lie within this area and are vital parts of the overall connectivity and the future of the upper peninsula.

Here’s what the local real estate market is looking like. If you want to know what’s happening in your zipcode/town specifically, either reply to this email and let me know the area, or click HERE to sign up for updates, or click the graph and search by area.

1️⃣ Have a tip for us?
Got the inside scoop on something coming or changing? Reply to this email and let me know! Happy to give you credit if it makes it in the newsletter or on Instagram.

2️⃣ Curious what’s happening?
See some land being cleared or zoning notices popping up in your neighborhood? Send me all the details you can, and I’ll look into it and see what we can find.

3️⃣ Know someone who needs a REALTOR®?
If your friends or family ask if you know a good REALTOR®, that answer is always yes. Send them my way, I got a guy that help! 😉 Oh, and this goes for you too if you need my help!

And here’s 1 way you can help me…If this newsletter was informative, pass it on!

Forward this email to one person in Charleston who wants to pay attention to what's happening around them. Or send them here to sign up:
chucktownreport.com/subscribe

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