Co-Working Space in North Charleston, SC

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) — The remainder of 2024 at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center and Coliseum is filled with major headliners visiting to perform, from Rock legends like Heart to up-and-coming country music artists like Jelly Roll.

Here’s a breakdown of some top acts from every genre to see.

GRETA VAN FLEET

May 12, North Charleston Coliseum, 7 p.m.

The singers of “Safari Song,” Black Smoke Rising,” and “Light My Love” will take the stage this Sunday at the North Charleston Coliseum on their Starcatcher World Tour, with tours opening at 6 p.m. Parking for the event is $10, and tickets are still available. If you can’t attend this one, the band will play in Duluth, GA, next. Make sure to check out the Coliseum’s clear bag policy before you head to the show.

FLASHBACK FUNK FEST

May 26, North Charleston PAC, 7:30 p.m.

Featuring performances from Morris Day and The Time, Confunkshun, Midnight Start, and Brick, if you’re into R&B, funk, and soul, you’ve found the show for it. Grab your tickets and dress in your funkiest clothes for a night of throwback fun. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., and parking will be $10.

STEVE MILLER BAND

June 13, North Charleston Performing Arts, 7:30 p.m.

The legend that is Steve Haworth Miller will grace the stage at 7:30 p.m., with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. Known for numerous hit recordings like “Take the Money and Run,” “The Joker,” “Jet Airliner,” “Space Cowboy,” and more, grab your tickets fast before you miss the chance to hear them live.

JELLY ROLL

September 19, North Charleston Coliseum, 7 p.m.

This up-and-coming country rap artist is headlining the coliseum stage at 7 p.m. with opening acts Warren Zeiders and Alexandra Kay on The Beautifully Broken Tour. This a Live Nation concert, so grab tickets during concert week, May 8 through 14, for a discounted price of 25 dollars.

HEART

October 17, North Charleston Coliseum, 8 p.m.

Rock icons Heart, known for classics like “Magic Man,” “Crazy On You,” “Dreamboat Annie,” “Barracuda,” and so many more, will take the stage at the North Charleston Coliseum at 8 p.m. Special guest Cheap Trick will also perform. Don’t miss seeing sisters and Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Ann and Nancy Wilson live. Tickets are on sale now.

MERCY ME

October 20, North Charleston Coliseum, 7 p.m.

This contemporary Christian band will play alongside other Christian bands, Crowder and Cochren, and Co. Mercy Me is known for songs like “Then Christ Came,” “To Not Worship You,” and “Dear Younger Me.” The band can be frequently heard on the popular Christian music radio channel K-Love. To get tickets, go to Ticketmaster.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Investigators with the Federal Aviation Administration are looking into whether Boeing employees failed to perform some quality inspections on its 787 jets, the FAA confirmed on Monday.

The 787 planes are built at Boeing South Carolina, located in North Charleston.

Live 5 News obtained a copy of the internal memo from Scott Stocker, who leads the 787 program, which was sent to Boeing South Carolina employees last week. He acknowledged a violation of policies by several people who had not performed a written test but recorded the work as having been completed.

Stocker applauded a teammate who saw something in the factory that he believed was not being done right and spoke up about it.

“We will use this moment to celebrate him, and to remind us all about the kind of behavior we will and will not accept as a team,” Stocker stated in the email.

“The teammate saw what appeared to be an irregularity in a required conformance test in wing body join,” Stocker said. “He raised it with his manager, who brought it to the attention of executive leadership. I wanted to personally thank and commend that teammate for doing the right thing. It’s critical that every one of us speak up when we see something that may not look right, or that needs attention.”

Stocker stated that Boeing has zero tolerance for not following processes designed to ensure quality and safety.

He added the regulator was informed and Boeing South Carolina is taking “swift and serious corrective action with multiple teammates.”

Stocker added that the engineering team has assessed this misconduct did not create an immediate safety of flight issue, however, it is going to impact Boeing’s customers and factory teammates because the test now needs to be conducted out of sequence on airplanes in the build process.

The FAA released the following statement on the investigation:

The FAA has opened an investigation into Boeing after the company voluntarily informed us in April that it may not have completed required inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes.

The FAA is investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records. At the same time, Boeing is reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet.

As the investigation continues, the FAA will take any necessary action – as always – to ensure the safety of the flying public.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - The future of land in North Charleston lies in the hands of city council members, and it’s a breath of relief for concerned community members and a strain for the company urging its industrial use.

The city council will be the next step forward for the proposed plan after a request to rezone two parts of the former Baker Hospital property on the Ashley River. They will vote on whether the land will be rezoned from R-1 residential to M-2, heavy industrial and M-1, light industrial.

The city’s Planning Commission on Monday voted 5-1 to deny the recommendation to rezone before passing it onto council - saying it didn’t align with the best interest of the city’s comprehensive plan, the location to the Ashley River and the public interest of surrounding neighborhoods.

The land, defined as a brownfield, is a property, the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant, the Environmental Protection Agency says.

“We don’t need industry in our living rooms. We don’t need to breathe the fluid of industry in our neighborhoods. We don’t need to be impacted negatively that way,” Union Heights resident Skip Mikell says.

The Charleston County Parks and Recreation Commission and Sea Fox Boats have a 90-year lease with the goal of building a manufacturing plant on 11 acres of the 46-acre property. Sea Fox Boats owner Freddy Renken says they plan to bring 200 or more jobs to the area and will fund the construction of a waterfront public park.

The commission says rent paid by Sea Fox Boats and its dry stack marina would offset operations and maintenance for the park. Nothing has been finalized or started because this is in a due diligence phase.

The park itself would have the following amenities:

Renken did not speak at the meeting but a company lawyer shared insight on his behalf:

“What is there not to want about this? To turn a brownfield into a park that provides jobs and an economic engine. With Sea Fox Boats, the City of North Charleston will be able to build planes, cars, boats. I think that is pretty cool,” Ronald Richter says.

Despite the push for approval, a resounding “no” was heard from a crowd of North Charleston homeowners and supporters. They say the company never shared its plans with surrounding neighborhoods and businesses, including Union Heights, Chicora-Cherokee and Accabee.

Mayor Reggie Burgess also pushed for a full recreational park option to be considered following the initial plan release.

Charleston County Parks states in this press release they planned on releasing public input meeting dates in early 2024. As of now, no updates have been provided.

The commission released the following statement:

The Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission (CCPRC) recently entered into a public-private partnership with the locally-owned Sea Fox Boat Company at its Ashley River site. The company is in a two-year due diligence phase, which includes addressing zoning and permitting issues.

Per the partnership, Charleston County Parks would continue to own the entire property, with tenant Sea Fox funding the creation and maintenance of the future public park. This would allow Charleston County Parks to develop and operate the park without taxpayer funds. Because of the site’s history as the former Baker Hospital and as a phosphate processing plant, it has created a brownfield that will require costly environmental efforts to make it suitable for recreational use.

The future county park would offer residents green space and views of the Ashley River. Other possible amenities at the park include a fishing/crabbing dock, trails, playground, splash pad, shelter for camps or programs, and unique event space. Public input meetings will be held to learn what the communities would like to see on the site. Once the zoning process has been completed, we will determine the timeline for the public input meetings.

Seventeen people spoke in opposition to the plan. Neighbors say adding the plant would not benefit their community in terms of work or play and are asking for the area to be solely a park.

“The neighborhoods we represent have some of the lowest unemployment rates in North Charleston. Chicora-Cherokee specifically has a 2.9 unemployment rate, which means our people are already working,” KJ Kearney says.

The planning commission stated in the agenda item they recommended denial because they believe the property’s location to the Ashley River makes the plant unfeasible and there is a “lack of support” to the city’s comprehensive plan.

Sea Fox Boats argues the area they are requesting rezoning for is on a brownfield, the former site of a phosphate processing plant and hospital, which would need environmental maintenance to make the area suitable for recreational purposes or greenspace.

North Charleston natives say they remember the smells, the sights and the feelings of growing up near the former plant and the concerns it raised for health and wellness.

“Those people don’t live here. So whatever damage they do, they leave at the end of the shift and go home. We live here and if there’s anything that we can do to prevent that kind of thing reoccurring. We’re going to do so,” Mikell says.

The site was donated to Charleston County Parks in 2015 by Charleston residents Michael and Jenny Messner of the Speedwell Foundation. The organization did not respond to a request for comment.

“The owner of that property is the Charleston County Parks and Recreation. Their purpose for being is to create parks, preserve and protect greenspaces,” Richter says. “We are not looking for the high bidder here, we are looking for the perfect partner to clean this place and make it a place of pride.”

The discussion will now go before city council starting on April 11 for its first reading. The next opportunity for public input will be on April 18.

For more information on the project, click here.

Copyright 2024 WCSC. All rights reserved.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – The South Carolina Ports Authority announced Tuesday it plans to purchase the former WestRock paper mill site in North Charleston to “further expand port capacity.”

WestRock announced in May 2023 that it would close the mill in late August, citing high operating costs and the need for significant capital investment as the driving factors behind the closure.

The SC Ports Board of Directors voted on Tuesday morning to move forward with a purchase sales agreement with WestRock. While the SC Ports did not provide a timeline, they said the transaction is expected to close “as soon as practical.”

Port officials said they also received support from the state for the project.

“South Carolina Ports is widely known as a top driver of our state’s booming economy, but that success doesn’t come by accident — it takes timely, strategic investments like this one. Every time we invest in port infrastructure, we see significant success at port-dependent businesses and new, good-paying jobs for our people. Our state’s investment in the expansion of North Charleston Terminal will yield dividends and create opportunities for future generations,” said Governor Henry McMaster.

“The tremendous backing from our state and an excellent partnership with WestRock allows us to make investments today that will support our state’s economy and create opportunities for future generations of South Carolinians,” said SC Ports President and CEO Barbara Melvin. “We are adding significant port capacity to support growth in South Carolina and throughout the Southeast.”

The approximately 280-acre property sits adjacent to the North Charleston Terminal. SC Ports leaders say the former paper mill site will offer a natural extension of the container terminal allowing them to handle more cargo for port-dependent businesses.

It could expand the terminal’s capacity to handle five million containers in the future and create 5,000 feet of linear berth space for container shops, and around 400 acres of terminal space for cargo.

Port officials said the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) is playing a key role in the project. They are planning to expand I-526 and will replace the Don Holt Bridge, which would remove height constraints for larger vessels.

“Plans are also underway to achieve a 52-foot depth up to North Charleston Terminal. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Charleston District, is undertaking a feasibility study — a critical first step toward deepening this stretch of the Cooper River an additional five feet,” the SC Ports said in its release.

Leaders say the deepening and new bridge height will allow bigger ships calling the Port of Charleston to seamlessly access the North Charleston Terminal.

Charleston Tops the Latest Metro Area Employment Statistics for Growth

By Taylor Hendrix, Workforce Insights Analyst

What is the Current Employment Statistics Program?

The Current Employment Statistics (CES) program produces detailed industry estimates of employment, hours, and earnings of workers for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and about 450 metropolitan areas and divisions. Each month, the CES surveys approximately 122,000 businesses and government agencies, representing 666,000 individual worksites.[i] Let’s look at the latest numbers for October 2023.

Current Data

Charleston-North Charleston, South Carolina, which includes Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties, had the largest percentage gain in nonfarm[ii] employment from October 2022 to October 2023. Employment in 2022 was at 402,300 and rose to 426,800 in 2023, reflecting a total change of 24,500, or 6.1 percent. Midland, Texas, followed with a 5.1 percent change over the year, then Boise City, Idaho, with a 4.5 percent change, and Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Salinas, California, both with a 4.4 percent change rounding out the top five metro areas.

Although Charleston was the only South Carolina location to appear in the top 10, every metropolitan area in the state exhibited growth year-over-year, suggesting a strong economy and a motivated labor force.

For more information on these data, the two tables below depict the top 10 metro areas nationwide for growth and the South Carolina metro areas, specifically, for the latest CES data.

[i] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, TED: The Economics Daily, Employment in Charleston metro area up 6.1 percent for the year ended in October 2023, https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/employment-in-charleston-metro-area-up-6-1-percent-for-year-ended-in-october-2023.htm

[ii] Nonfarm employment comprises goods, construction, and manufacturing companies.