The residential developer of Kiawah Island is teeing it up for a second round with a U.K.-based real estate investor.
South Street Partners, which is headquartered in downtown Charleston and Charlotte, is part of a new joint venture with private-equity firm Henderson Park that recently snapped up the PGA National Resort in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Other investors included billionaire Sheila Johnson’s Salamander Hotels & Resorts, which manages the Hotel Bennett in Charleston, among other properties.
The seller was a real estate fund run by Brookfield Asset Management. The price wasn’t disclosed, but numerous media reports estimated the 806-acre resort was poised to fetch more than $400 million.
PGA National includes 360 guest rooms, a 40,000-square-foot spa and 99 holes of golf. Its Champion Course layout has been, since 2007, the host site of the PGA Tour’s Honda Classic, now the Cognizant Classic. The annual event will be carried on NBC and the Golf Channel Feb. 27-March 2.
Brookfield recently completed a $100 million renovation of the resort, and the new owners said they “will embark on further improvements, including the addition of a new pool and significant enrichments to the golf experience for both members and resort guests.”
South Street Partners and Henderson Park have teamed up once before — along the May River in Beaufort County. In 2021, they acquired the swanky 20,000-acre Palmetto Bluff getaway, where a new Ben Crenshaw-designed golf course in the works.
Dominion Energy’s power bills include monthly surcharges to keep its employee pension plan in the black.
Pension plan
Dominion Energy South Carolina customers could soon see a reduction in their power bills, but most ratepayers probably won’t notice it.
A rider in the utility’s electric rate schedules lets the company charge customers to help cover the costs of its pension plan for retirees. The figure is adjusted each year to reflect financial market conditions and other factors. Dominion can either boost or lower the monthly collection to reflect the amount it needs to cover pension expenses.
Starting with bills in May, that charge would equal 0.019 cents per kilowatt hour. That’s down from the 0.077 cents per kilowatt hour that’s now being charged.
The new fee would equal 19 cents a month for the average household using 1,000 kilowatt hours.
That’s an average savings of almost $7 a year from the current fee. Of course, customers who use a lot of power will see a bigger savings while those who use less will see a lower impact to their bills.
Dominion, which has roughly 800,000 Palmetto State customers and is headquartered in Richmond, Va., said in a regulatory filing that it would collect about $12.6 million more than it needs if the pension surcharge isn’t adjusted.
The S.C. Public Service Commission must approve the rate decrease before it can take effect.
The recently sold Charleston’s Rigging & Marine Hardware moved to the former Navy base in 2018 after about three decades in its former home (above) on the upper peninsula.
On the Ascent
A locally based family business that’s been manufacturing industrial slings, rigging equipment and other safety products for nearly four decades has sealed a tie-up with a private-equity-backed buyer.
Charleston’s Rigging & Marine Hardware was recently sold to an Arizona company that’s been on a bit of a rollup spree. Financial terms of the deal with Phoenix-based Ascent Lifting were not disclosed.
Started in 1988 by Rick and Valerie Sawin and now headquartered on the old Navy base, Charleston’s Rigging was a fixture for years on the upper peninsula next to Santi Restaurante Mexicano, where its former Meeting Street Road home is now an apartment complex. The founder’s children, Skip Sawin and Jessica Sage, took over the business in 2011 and remain with the company under the new ownership.
The operations include a Columbia site that offers crane-related services.
The new owner was formed by Shorehill Capital, a Chicago-based private equity firm that targets North American “engineered industrial products, industrial services and value-added distribution businesses,” according to its website.
Ascent CEO Dee Schweigert said in a Feb. 4 statement that the deal “establishes two physical locations in the highly attractive South Carolina market.”
He added that the company is aiming “to be the acquirer of choice in the rigging industry” and that the latest buyout, its fifth since 2022, “is a prime example of this strategy.”
Park place
The proposed American Gardens park will include seating areas and a cafe space at 174 King St.
A new privately funded pocket park being built in the heart of downtown Charleston’s tourism district isn’t ready for its closeup yet, but it’s already attracting national and international attention.
Beemok Hospitality Collection‘s American Gardens was recently named among the “Best things to do in each state for 2025 by The Times of London.
Spanning almost 1 acre between Meeting and King Streets, the former parking lot is being transformed into a landscaped gathering space, adorned with large fountains and a lawn shaded by transplanted mature oaks and crape myrtles.
Ben Navarro, whose Beemok owns The Charleston Place and the upcoming Cooper hotel, among other visitor-oriented businesses, pitched the idea a couple of years ago before buying the site from Dominion Energy for $11.5 million.
With city approvals in hand, site work is now under way. It’s not a lock that it’ll be ready for visitors by the fall as The Times stated.
But it’s Beemok’s goal for the patriotic-sounding pocket park to be ready for picnickers and pedestrians by late 2025 in time to commemorate the nation’s 250th birthday next year.
Ziff zells
A Mount Pleasant-based commercial property buyer has cycled out of a Peach State investment.
According to trade publication reports this week, Ziff Real Estate Partners recently sold a Planet Fitness-anchored strip center that it acquired a decade ago in the Columbus, Ga., market.
The $8.85 million sale of the 63,607-square-foot St. Francis Marketplace closed in December, according to public property records. The new owner is an affiliate of Fayetteville, Ark.-based Core Equity Partners.
Ziff acquired the Columbus retail center in April 2015 for $6.6 million and made various upgrades to the property over the past decade.
Locally, the Wingo Way firm’s national real estate portfolio includes Wando Crossing in Mount Pleasant, Ashley Oaks and Crossroads Centre, both in West Ashley, and Ladson Oakbrook Shopping Center in Summerville.