Annual Meeting Day 1: Get a peek at the mobile workshop with the Town of Hilton Head Island

More than 100 municipal officials learned that Hilton Head Island's redevelopment efforts have a lot in common with their own. In particular? The forces that drive redevelopment can be found everywhere.

They include: Aging infrastructure. Millennials. Changing lifestyles. The economic downturn. Growth. Aging buildings with lagging maintenance.

Hilton Head Island’s Mall at Shelter Cove was built in the 1980s. Today the Shelter Cove Towne Center is the result of re-envisioned development. But it took careful planning and design guidelines to get there.

An aerial photo of the old mall showed that Broad Creek, which is next to the property, wasn’t used to its full potential. 

“It turned its back on this beautiful view,” said Jennifer Ray, Hilton Head Island’s planning and special projects manager, during a breakfast at a restaurant in the development held before a bus tour of the town’s redevelopment successes. The tour was part of the Municipal Association’s Annual Meeting.

“The mall started failing,” said Ray of the old Shelter Cove shopping center. In the 2000s, this mall, just like many indoor shopping centers, faced competition as online retail increased and as the economy started to downturn.

The owners asked the town for a development agreement to spur activity, but the plans never came to fruition. A few years later, an Augusta, Georgia-based developer got involved. Instead of a strip mall design, the developer created a village atmosphere.

“The shops have a different flavor as you walk along. There are public spaces next to the route to encourage you stop and linger,” Ray said. And in the back by the creek, there is a public park.

“It would have been the loading dock in the back of the grocery store had the developer not been willing to say, ‘That jewel out there that Hilton Head Island prizes is valuable to our tenant as well.’”

“We have an extensive design review board and design guidelines,” said Ray. "Island character is a concept this island was founded on when Charles Fraser started development here. We take that very seriously and have a high quality, sustainable product that will be beautiful and last for years. It also blends into nature, which is another one of our assets that people come here for.”

Creating the new Shelter Cove Town Center took creativity and care to get the aesthetics just right. One way to do this was to add patches of public spaces, including benches and gathering areas, to the development.

Landscaping, pedestrian-level lighting also helped. Rethinking the power lines was yet another way.

“The town helped negotiate with Santee Cooper to move the power line,” Ray said, so that it runs through the parking lot. “That’s not the area that you want to focus on. You park your car, and you get out and you move on.”

Lower-storied buildings were placed closer to where automobiles are moving. Farther back on the site features larger buildings. Coordinating bricks and building materials helps create a cohesive project.

“You never feel like you’re right in front a large mass of large grocery or big-box store," said Ray.

Thursday’s redevelopment tour showed more than 100 municipal officials other highlights, including acreage of the future University of South Carolina Beaufort site on Office Park Road, the Sonesta Resort, which suffered damage from Hurricane Matthew and had to undergo repairs, and other hotel redevelopment projects and gated communities.