Granite Countertops in Summerville, SC

Music, guided tours and an appetizing spread were all part of the package during the Summerville-Dorchester Museum’s 30th anniversary function on Feb. 5, as featured attraction Dr. Ed West held court to introduce a new softcover publication and delve into the people of “off.”

In leading up to his presentation of a new release titled “When The President Circled Summerville,” West entertained a gathered audience in the museum courtyard with accounts of some of Summerville’s founding and/or influential residents from days gone by who weren’t necessarily natives of the community.

Through the years, these individuals — much like many present-day out-of-towners — were referred to as the people of “off,” per the historian.

“The people who came here and really made history did not live here. We have a few people who truly are historical characters who are from Summerville. But a whole lot of people who really made a big name here didn’t live here,” stated West.

Dr. Charles Shepard of North Haven, Connecticut was one of these seminal figures, who traveled to Summerville to build the Pinehurst Tea Plantation in 1888, recognized as the first commercial tea plantation in the United States. Lipton Tea Company would eventually claim the old Pinehurst plants and transported them to Wadmadlaw Island years after the operation faltered once its founder passed in 1915.

Similarly, West recounted how German immigrant Frederick Wagener purchased the Summerville Hotel Company in 1890, and went on to open the Pine Forest Inn a year later.

Wagener started out as a grocer and emerged as a self-made millionaire. He would go on to build the largest commercial edifice in Charleston on East Bay Street in 1880 and lived at the “Rutledge House” on the other end of Broad Street.

The book further highlights the exploits of railroad man John Averill of Plattsburgh, New York, who led the rebuilding efforts in Summerville in the aftermath of the 1886 earthquake.

But the protagonist of the book is the 26th President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt. The New York City-born statesman, conservationist, soldier, writer and historian is prominently featured on the cover the museum’s limited-edition printed copy due to his 24-hour visit to Summerville in 1902. The purpose of the sojourn was to tour the Lowcountry due to “two remarkable men,” as mentioned in the write-up, who joined forces on a “benighted effort” to host a World’s Fair in the Holy City.

“Teddy Roosevelt spent the day in Charleston and he came up to Summerville and spent the night at the Pine Forest Inn and then he went over to see the tea farm,” explained West.

While in Charleston, Roosevelt claimed that his mother, Martha Stewart “Mittie” Roosevelt, was a southerner born in Connecticut, but raised in Cobb County, Georgia in the 1800s.

“I don’t know if you all think this way, but who lived in South Carolina in 1700 and in Georgia in 1800? The people who lived out in Dorchester. I found out her maiden name was Stewart ... this land we’re standing on now was owned by James Stewart.”

In addition, West disclosed that (James) Stewart — a relative of Martha’s from the previous century — most likely was the proprietor of property that would serve as the future location of the Pine Forest Inn in Summerville.

The site of the Pine Forest Inn was situated on 60 acres of land near the present-day Roosevelt Square that is generally bounded by Simmons Avenue, Salisbury Drive, Marion Avenue and Gaillard Lane.

The limited-edition book copies were distributed among sponsor reps at the anniversary event that was also attended by museum executive officers and directors, including: Vice President Pam Giesick, Kenneth Battle, Danny Hughes, Janet Sussman and Michael Sussman, among others.

The South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) in conjunction with the Town of Summerville and the Dorchester County Transportation Authority (DCTA) continues work on the 3rd phase of the Berlin G. Myers Project.

A temporary 3-day, 72-hour closure of the Sawmill Branch Walk/Bike Trail between Luden Drive and the pedestrian bridge at Willet Drive (shown in red on the map below) will be required between Monday, February 20, 2023, and Wednesday, February 22, 2023. Construction crews will be working on crossline drainage pipes beneath the existing trail and constructing a small section of detour trail near Luden Drive.

Variable message boards will be placed at either end of the trail to give advanced warning of the closure to pedestrians. The trail from Luden Drive to Crosscreek Drive and from Willet Drive to East Richardson Avenue will remain open and may still be used (shown in green on the map below).

The safety of the traveling public is of the utmost concern. Construction crews will work diligently to complete this work and reopen the trail for the Town’s recreational use as quickly as possible.

In what has been dubbed a “do-or-die” season for fifth-year head coach Mark Kingston, the University of South Carolina baseball team is getting it done … and then some.

Gamecock baseball has raced out to a 12-1 record and the No. 20 ranking in the nation, according to the latest poll from D1 Baseball. Kingston’s team captured a key series win last weekend over arch-rival Clemson – and has been tearing the cover off the baseball as it approaches the start of Southeastern Conference (SEC) play.

Through Tuesday’s games, South Carolina is hitting .307 as a team with 133 runs scored. For those of you doing the math at home, the Gamecocks are averaging more than ten runs per game.

So much for offense being the supposed weak link on this squad …

As expected, senior Braylen Wimmer is pacing the offensive explosion – scoring a team-high 23 runs though thirteen games while hitting .422. Believe it or not, Wimmer’s astronomical average isn’t even the best on the team. That distinction belongs to freshman two-way player Ethan Petry, a 6-foot-4, 230-pound freshman from Land O’Lakes, Florida who is hitting .462 on the young campaign with six home runs and 17 runs batted in (RBIs).

Driving in even more runs than Petry? Sophomore catcher Cole Messina of Summerville, S.C. (20) and transfers Caleb Denny (20) and Gavin Casas (18).

South Carolina’s hot start is not only good news for Kingston, it is good news for Gamecock athletics director Ray Tanner – who has presided over the decline of the program he built into a perennial national championship contender over a decade ago.

South Carolina captured back-to-back national titles in 2010 and 2011 and reached the finals of the College World Series (CWS) the following year, ultimately falling to Arizona. During Tanner’s sixteen seasons at the helm, his teams posted a spectacular 738- 313 (.700) mark – qualifying for postseason play fourteen times and never once posting a losing record.

Since then, the struggle has been real.

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Tanner’s hand-picked successor, Chad Holbrook, just couldn’t keep momentum going. Holbrook went 199-105 (.559) in his five seasons at South Carolina. His teams never reached the CWS and failed to qualify for the postseason in 2015 and 2017.

After Holbrook maneuvered his way out of town under Tanner’s not-so-watchful eye, Kingston was hired to rebuild the program. Through his first five seasons, though, the backsliding continued. Kingston posted a 138-109 (.559) mark – including a 54-66 (.450) record against conference opponents – through his first five seasons (including the Covid-shortened 2020 campaign).

That reminds me … while Kingston is certainly riding a huge wave of momentum to start the 2023 campaign, the road ahead is incredibly arduous.

South Carolina has upcoming three-game series against No. 1 LSU (April 6-8), No. 3 Tennessee (May 18-20), No. 6 Florida (April 20-22), No. 7 Vanderbilt (April 14-16) and No. 8 Arkansas (May 12-14). They also play No. 14 North Carolina on April 4 in Charlotte, N.C.

It doesn’t get much tougher than that …

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Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and seven children.

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SUMMERVILLE, S.C. — Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) Atlantic invited industry partners to an exclusive tabletop demonstration at Advanced Technology International (ATI) headquarters in late February to help them conceptualize the development of a prototype that will enhance the Marine Corps’ all-source intelligence system.

The demonstration was coordinated by NIWC Atlantic’s Information Warfare Research Project (IWRP), a highly successful program launched in 2018 to accelerate prototype development and deliver critical capabilities to the fleet faster.

Since its inception, IWRP has awarded 144 prototype projects totaling $543 million.

The demonstration was the first of its kind and coincided with an IWRP request for prototype project (RPP), which was released on Feb. 21.

“We planned this unique hands-on demonstration in conjunction with our call for proposals in order to provide industry the clearest look into what the Marine Corps is actually requesting,” said Jee Youn Fickling, a NIWC Atlantic program manager who oversees IWRP.

Twenty-nine IWRP consortium members attended the in-depth briefing at ATI, where prototype integration for the Distributed Common Ground/Surface System – Marine Corps (DCGS-MC) architecture was explained and demonstrated.

DCGS-MC is the Marine Corps’ ubiquitous network of intelligence and information that provides critical battlespace awareness capabilities. The system shed nearly 1,000 pounds of hardware in recent years thanks to NIWC Atlantic’s role in a major modernization effort that reduced its size, weight, cost and power requirements.

Now, to provide Marines even more advanced proficiencies during expeditionary operations in a maritime environment, the prototype under consideration must funnel certain DCGS-MC capabilities through the common handheld device currently used by Marines.

“To help the warfighter, we need companies to develop something that hits the target,” said Will Roenke, DCGS-MC All Source team lead at NIWC Atlantic’s Expeditionary Warfare Department. “In general, we typically see proposals that are either inapplicable, on-target or cost-prohibitive. This event will hopefully keep proposed prototypes on target while also increasing the number of responses we can choose from.”

NIWC Atlantic’s IWRP program regularly searches for ways to cut red tape and ease contracting processes for entities that have never worked with the government. IWRP is just one of several other transaction authorities, or OTAs, within the Department of the Navy (DON) created to lower barriers of entry for companies and get cutting-edge technologies into the hands of warfighters.

Fickling said there are nearly 800 members in the IWRP consortium, with an overwhelming 78% of them classified as non-traditional businesses and entities.

Roenke, who provided attendees with the DCGS-MC briefing, said based on feedback he received, incorporating events like the IWRP demo is an ideal way to request a proposal.

“It is difficult for companies in the private sector to provide a usable product within our architecture and constraints without seeing them firsthand,” he said. “By us articulating the need, gaps and some stretch-goals that we have for the system in the context of a larger effort for the project, value added in each proposal will likely increase and become a meaningful enhancement to the Marine intelligence process.”

Capt. Nicole Nigro, NIWC Atlantic commanding officer, said the demonstration was an excellent addition to the process to ensure the DON received the strongest proposals possible.

“Our IWRP leaders have moved out quickly to establish this consortium that benefits our industry partners and, most importantly, our warfighters,” she said. “I am extremely proud of their hard work, their creative ideas and their dedication to working with other teams and projects within the command to deliver the very best capabilities to our warfighters.”

About NIWC Atlantic

As a part of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, NIWC Atlantic provides systems engineering and acquisition to deliver information warfare capabilities to the naval, joint and national warfighter through the acquisition, development, integration, production, test, deployment, and sustainment of interoperable command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, cyber and information technology capabilities. Learn more at www.niwcatlantic.navy.mil.

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) - Located at the corner of Berlin Myers Parkway and Highway 78, a 57-acre multi-use property will bring new development to the Summerville area by early 2025.

The property, named Sawmill, will include 474 multi-family apartment units, offices, restaurants, hotels, stores, banks, outdoor spaces and a 40,000-square-foot Roper St. Francis facility.

Summerville spokesperson Mary Edwards said the task to get the development started was a long process.

“It’s something that people have been wanting for a long time, and council has really supported the developers, too. It’s a big deal for us; I mean, it’s a new big development that’s coming to our area,” Edwards said. “It’s something that’s needed. It’s something that the public has really wanted.”

The developers, Lee & Associates, said in a news release that “a new walkable community designed to better connect residents with the fun they want and services they need will be anchored by a major healthcare system.”

Although not everyone in the area is excited about the new development. Some members of the Summerville community shared their concerns on a Facebook post with over 400 comments mentioning traffic problems, school enrollment and housing availability.

Located near the development, the Spinx gas station may see increased traffic with the upcoming construction. Employee Rona Emons, shared her concerns.

“I don’t think we can really handle it because this road is already always backed up; it’s already hard to get in and out of the store,” she said. “I think that’s going to make it a lot worse unless they try to widen the road somehow, which I don’t know how they can do that. But yeah, it’s going to cause a lot of congestion in this area.”

In response to the concerns, Edwards said the city and developers studied research before deciding if the project was appropriate for the area.

“The town is growing really fast,” Edwards said. “So, we know that people want to come here, and they want to experience the area. We want to be able to provide these types of options for people when they come.”

Construction on the health care facility and multi-family apartment units will begin in early 2023.

“I’m kind of excited,” Emons said. “I’d like to get out. You know, it’d be nice to see something new in this area. So yeah, I’m looking forward to it in some ways, and otherwise, I’m kind of a little leery of it.”

Overall, the project is expected to cost $200 million.

Copyright 2022 WCSC. All rights reserved.

More than 50 master-planned lifestyle communities throughout the country were recognized in the organization’s annual best-of list.

"PCR is honored to work with hundreds of top communities throughout the country, and pleased to be able to officially recognize the most popular with our annual top communities list,” ”

VERO BEACH, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES, March 7, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Private Communities Registry (PCR), the trusted online resource for real estate shoppers interested in amenity-rich, master-planned lifestyle communities, has released its “Top Communities of the Year” awards.

The diverse list includes more than 50 communities across eleven categories broken down by state and region. In each region, PrivateCommunities.com features dozens of appealing and desirable community showcase pages. The winners were selected based on a wide range of data that combines user engagement, page visits, and information requests from the previous year (2022).

“Despite shifts in the real estate market, it was another good year for lifestyle communities across the country as many families, active adults, and retirees seek the perks and benefits of master-planned communities,” says Ben Keal, PCR’s Director of Sales and Operations. “With more than 1 million visitors and tens of thousands of leads generated, all of the nearly 250 communities featured on PCR garnered interest among prospective buyers—and this list is meant to acknowledge the most popular communities, according to our users.”

Annual research of website visitors conducted by PCR revealed that community homebuyers are most motivated by “active lifestyle amenities” such as swimming pools, walking/biking trails, and fitness centers. Furthermore, many prefer to be near the beach, lake, or golf course. Not surprisingly, many of 2023’s top communities offer all those accommodations and more.

PCR’s Most Popular Lifestyle Communities of 2023 Are:

Arizona • Encanterra, A Trilogy Resort Community- Queen Creek, AZ • K. Hovnanian’s Four Seasons at Victory at Verrado- Buckeye, AZ • Trilogy at Verde River™- Rio Verde, AZ

California • Esperanza- Ontario, CA • K Hovnanian’s Four Seasons at Terra Lago- Indio, CA • Lake Wildwood- Penn Valley, CA • Trilogy Bickford- Lincoln, CA

Florida • Ave Maria- Ave Maria, FL • Fiddler’s Creek- Naples, FL • Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach- Daytona Beach, FL • Latitude Margaritaville Watersound- Panama City Beach, FL • On Top of the World Communities- Ocala, FL • PGA Village Verano- Port St. Lucie, FL • Windward at Lakewood Ranch- Sarasota, FL

Georgia • Cumberland Harbour- St. Mary’s, GA • Lake Arrowhead- Waleska, GA • The Landings- Savannah, GA • Savannah Quarters- Savannah, GA • Waterways- Richmond Hill, GA

North Carolina • Albemarle Plantation- Hertford, NC • Bear Lake Reserve- Tuckasegee, NC • Carolina Gardens by Del Webb- Fuquay-Varina, NC • Connestee Falls- Brevard, NC • Riverlights- Wilmington, NC • Rumbling Bald on Lake Lure- Lake Lure, NC • St. James Plantation- Southport, NC

South Carolina • Callawassie Island- Callawassie Island, SC • Cresswind Charleston- Summerville, SC • Dataw Island- Dataw Island, SC • K. Hovnanian's Four Seasons at Carolina Oaks- Bluffton, SC • Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head- Hardeeville, SC • McCord's Ferry at Lake Marion- Santee, SC • Savannah Lakes Village- McCormick, SC • Woodside- Aiken, SC

Tennessee • Black Creek Chattanooga- Chattanooga, TN • Fairfield Glade- Fairfield Glade, TN • Tellico Village- Loudon, TN

Texas • Boot Ranch- Fredericksburg, TX • Chambers Creek- Willis, TX • Headwaters- Dripping Springs, TX

Virginia • Bay Creek- Cape Charles, VA • Colonial Heritage- Williamsburg, VA • Fawn Lake- Spotsylvania, VA • K. Hovnanian’s Four Seasons at Virginia Crossing- Woodbridge, VA • Trilogy at Lake Frederick- Lake Frederick, VA

Mid-Atlantic • Amblebrook Gettysburg- Gettysburg, PA • Glade Springs- Daniels, WV • Heritage Shores- Bridgeville, DE • Noble’s Pond- Dover, DE • The Peninsula on the Indian River Bay- Millsboro, DE

West • Port Ludlow- Port Ludlow, WA • Red Ledges- Heber City, UT • Trilogy Valor- Kuna, ID • Whitetail Club- McCall, ID

“Since 1996, PCR has partnered with some of the country’s top builders, developers, retirement communities, country clubs, and realtors. We’re proud to be able to work with so many wonderful communities throughout the country, and pleased to be able to officially recognize many of them with our annual top communities list,” concludes Ben.

For more information and details on the winners, explore PCR’s Top Communities of the Year here.

Private Communities Registry, LLC Founded in 1996, PCR is the trusted online resource for real estate shoppers searching for amenity-rich, master-planned lifestyle communities. PCR helps builders, developers, communities, and realtors drive sales with motivated leads and increased web traffic. Learn more at mediakit.privatecommunities.com.

Ben Keal Private Communities Registry, LLC +1 8008753072 email us here Visit us on social media: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube