A long-vacant former Pepsi bottling site on Charleston's Upper Peninsula is one step closer to becoming apartments and shops.
The city's Design Review Board voted 6-0 on Oct. 5 to grant preliminary approval to a mixed-use development at 1450 Meeting Street Road, according to the board's official meeting results. The plan calls for 332 residential units in a five-story building and two-story retail space. The owner is Atlanta-based Catalyst Development Partners.
The motion was made by board member Ben Whitener and seconded by Bill Eubanks. The site sits in Council District 4.
Preliminary approval isn't the last word. The board will do a final review, and the project has to go through the city's Technical Review Committee before coming back.
What's planned
Charleston Business Magazine reported that the apartment building will go up in place of the old Pepsi bottling warehouse, with retail facing Meeting Street. The magazine put the project's total cost at $13.5 million, but that number is far too low for a 332-unit building, and no free primary source backs it up, so we're leaving it out. No construction cost has been made public.
The magazine also described the retail as two one-story buildings. The city's agenda and results both say two-story retail, so we're going with the city's description.
What the board asked for
The board's motion came with seven conditions of its own. There can be no stucco or fiber cement on the commercial buildings, and the two masses on their stucco areas have to be clearly distinguished. The residential building can use only two-story or four-story brick levels, with no sections of brick water table, and the team must study the transition from the four-story to the two-story brick section to give it more relief. Vinyl windows are out. The project has to go to the Technical Review Committee before returning to the board, and a mockup panel will be required, with its drawings reviewed by staff after final approval.
The motion also folded in staff's written comments 2 through 13. Among them, staff asked that rooftop mechanical units on the retail buildings be screened from the apartment building's upper floors, and that trash enclosures off the side streets be screened with masonry walls and heavy landscaping if they stay where they are.
Staff flagged "many discrepancies" between the renderings, site plans and landscape plans. It asked the team to remove masonry walls shown in renderings that aren't actually proposed, and said it supports the wall detail in the drawings that mimics the existing cemetery walls next door. Staff asked for more renderings showing the whole site, including the outdoor parking and the trash loading area off Algonquin, along with a clearer view between the retail buildings showing a metal retaining wall for a sloped turf area. Staff also wants details on rain gardens, bike racks, planters, bollards, benches, concrete form walls and site lighting.
Separately, staff's first comment suggested a 5-foot dog park fence with mature shrubs to screen the cemetery next door.
That neighbor is Monrovia Cemetery, an African American burial ground established in the 19th century, Charleston Business Magazine reported. At the board's April 6 meeting, when Catalyst received conceptual approval, the board asked that the much taller new building not sit as close to the cemetery as the old bottling warehouse does. Anna-Catherine Alexander of the Preservation Society of Charleston called the project a "major opportunity" to activate the Upper Peninsula and improve pedestrian connections.
The city's results list the applicant as Cline/Orlando Pizarro. No general contractor has been announced.
Why it matters for Contractors
A 332-unit, five-story apartment building plus two retail buildings is a major job for the Charleston peninsula, and it will come with demolition of the old bottling warehouse before anything goes up. The board's conditions tell trades a lot about what to expect: real brick on the residential building, no vinyl windows, no stucco or fiber cement on the retail, a mockup panel and careful masonry walls that match the historic cemetery walls. Site work will include rain gardens, retaining walls, trash enclosures, a dog park and plenty of landscaping. Masonry contractors, window suppliers and landscape crews should take note. Working next to a historic burial ground also calls for care with excavation, fencing and site protection. With final approval still ahead and no contractor named, it's early, but this is one to watch.