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Sullivan’s Island residents have spoken and the SC Department of Transportation respected their wishes: No new modern bridge to replace the Ben Sawyer. The current design they love, but just want it to be safer.

Construction will begin next week to improve the existing bridge which was originally built in 1945 to connect Mount Pleasant and Sullivan’s Island. The contractor, PCL Civil Constructors of Tampa, Florida, will be replacing the bridge approaches as well as the swing span that opens for boat traffic to navigate through. Trestles will be constructed on both sides of the bridge approaches as well as a foundation upon which to slide off the old approaches. The sidewalk on the Charleston side will be widened from 2.5 feet to 5.5 feet, and the car lanes will increase to 14 feet from 12 feet. The bridge tender’s house will increase in size slightly.

The new swing span will be topped with a truss that will be built at the old Navy base and shipped in by barge. The bridge will close for approximately a week in November while the approaches and new swing span are put in place.

Four years ago engineers reduced the gross weight of vehicle access from 30 to 20 tons after an inspection uncovered significant deterioration of stringers and floor beams. Many locals remember the bridge truss left pointing skyward at a 45 degree angle, compliments of Hurricane Hugo in September of 1989.

The 124 foot long bridge is slated to be completed in May of 2010, at a cost of $31.5 million.

For more information on the Sullivan’s Island real estate market click here

EXIT Realty Charleston Group

Charleston Real Estate

America's 25 Strongest Housing Markets

Deborah Orr, 01.07.09, 04:00 PM EST –Forbes Magazine

Charleston Housing Market ranked as one the top 25 strongest real estate market in the U.S. by Forbes Magazine. Forbes predicts that the Charleston Housing Market will stay strong with a minimal rate of depreciation. Charleston is already beginning to feel an upward swing in the Charleston Real Estate Market as Charleston Area Realtors report that the phones are ringing again from buyers. Click America's 25 Strongest Housing Markets for more specific information on the Charleston Real Estate Market.

Even in the country's most resilient areas, 2009 prices are expected to fall flat.

In Depth: America's 25 Strongest Housing Markets

The housing boom passed right over Little Rock, Ark.

So has the bust.

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This quiet mountain metropolis of just over 675,000 saw none of the wild speculation of former boomtowns like Las Vegas or Miami, nor the ruined fortunes that followed. Of course, Little Rock isn't completely isolated from the recent housing downturn. There are 200 foreclosures in the works, according to Trulia.com, an online real estate data provider. Developers are scrapping new housing projects, and sales activity froze in the third quarter.

But housing prices in Little Rock don't look likely to fall by more than about 1% by the middle of next year. That's because they never climbed like they did in the rest of the country. In fact, 1% is about how much they have risen in the last year.

In Depth: America's 25 Strongest Housing Markets

It's the same story for McAllen, Texas, Syracuse, N.Y., Pittsburgh,Buffalo, N.Y., and El Paso, Texas. They top the list of the country's strongest real estate markets, in part because, like Little Rock, "none ... participated in the housing boom," says Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com. "Some are down just because the economy is bad."

Behind the Numbers
To compile this list, we asked Moody's Economy.com to compile a list of the country's real estate markets that are nearest to recovery. Moody's looked at the country's Census-defined metro areas--including metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas--with populations over 500,000, and prepared forecasts through 2011. They then compared them to prices in the second quarter of 2008, which are the latest figures available, to calculate how far prices will likely fall before reaching bottom.

Not one metro area will see prices increase before the end of this year, according to Zandi's forecasts. The strongest metro areas will be flat at best--but that's better than the 15% drop Moody's expects on average in the U.S. Prices won't start to pick up again until late this year or sometime next year even in the strongest markets.

Comment On This Story

That's because there are countervailing forces at work. The job market is weakening all over. On the other hand, new housing starts are down, which should help reduce supply--eventually. And, at just over 5% for a conforming 30-year mortgage, interest rates are lower than they've been in more than 35 years.

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Texas markets are most set to benefit. Housing values were rising in many Lone Star State towns until oil futures collapsed and agricultural commodity prices fell. But the bottom doesn't look very deep. Moody's forecasts no change for McAllen and a fall of less than 3% for Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso, San Antonio and Houston.

"Texas has the best large-state economy in the country right now," says Zandi. "Employment is slowing, but its still growing."

It's a similar story in Tulsa, Okla., where housing prices look like they will dip 1% this year after steady recent appreciation. With the price of crude falling, that's no surprise in this city built on oil. What's more surprising is how little values rose over the last decade; the average house in Tulsa changes hands for around $131,000, according to Trulia.com, compared to $100,000 in 2004.

New Orleans is another market that was relatively robust until the national downturn cast a shadow on local prices. Money poured into the Big Easy after Katrina destroyed the city and a long, slow renaissance began. Housing prices popped 13.7% in the third quarter of last year compared to a year earlier, according to Zillow.com, $135,000 on average. Moody's is forecasting a fall of 2% this year.

And just like Little Rock, housing markets in upstate New York never had the ups and downs of some hot markets in the rest of the country. In Rochester, the birthplace of industrial ancients Xerox (nyse: XRX - news - people ) and Eastman Kodak (nyse: EK - news - people ), real estate values have climbed at a steady 3% rate for the last five years. They don't have far to fall--about 2.4% according to Moody's forecasts. In Buffalo, Syracuse and Albany, prices should also remain steady this year.

It's a similar story for the old industrial town of Pittsburgh, Pa. The city built on steel had its crisis two decades ago. Now, it's one of America's cleanest cities. Carnegie Mellon University attracts some of the best and brightest students, and some of the old steel mills are being converted to research parks. Pittsburgh is grayer than most cities: 16% of the population is over 65, well above the national average of 12%. Retirees, living on social security and pensions, are less affected by job losses.

Housing prices ended the third quarter at a median $122,000, about where they have been for the last three years, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Moody's forecasts more of the same for this year.

With so many markets in sunnier places crashing and burning, being dull has its advantages.

To read the article visit: http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/07/housing-cities-realestate-forbeslife-cx_do_0107realestatestrong.html

For more information on the Charleston real estate market click here

EXIT Realty Charleston Group

North Charleston seminar concludes that things just really are not that bad in Charleston or in the United States for that matter. The economic issues we face are fixable and do not compare to the era of the Great Depression. Charleston Real Estate, as an example, is already beginning to see a turn as Charleston buyers are making Realtors phone ring.

By Molly Parker
mparker@scbiznews.com
Published Jan. 22, 2009

If we could be so lucky, the economy will flatline in 2009, but it’s not likely headed upward anytime soon, said College of Charleston economics professor Frank Hefner.

But the Great Depression? Not even close, he said.

“Imagine (Hurricane) Katrina and the Mississippi (River) flooding today, combined with these banking issues, that’s probably close to what a depression would look like today,” Hefner said.

As he spoke this morning at an Atlantic Occupational Health business seminar in North Charleston, Hefner displayed a black-and-white Depression-era picture of people standing in line at a bank trying to get their deposits out.

“My students think this looks like happy hour,” Hefner said.

The audience laughed. The point was clear: We aren’t there yet.

He flashed more numbers onto the screen. Between 1929 and 1933, the gross domestic product fell 29%. One-quarter of the nation’s work force was unemployed. Consumer prices dropped 25%, and 7,000 banks collapsed.

“Everyone is saying this is looking like a Great Depression, but it doesn’t if you look at the numbers,” Hefner said.

But this is a recession, to be sure, he said, and it might be a lengthy one. Fixing it will require addressing of the structural problems in the financial industry that created the mess, Hefner said. To make his point, Hefner recalled a speech he gave recently in which he said to the audience, “If greed is the problem, why not line up all the Wall Street executives on a wall and shoot them?”

The audience stood up and burst into applause, he said. It wasn’t the reaction Hefner was going for.

“As long as we focus on the emotional issue of the problems, we don’t address structural problems,” he said.

Besides, he said, if we make greed the central issue, it might paint more of us into a corner than we’d like to admit. Hefner said a nontraditional student in his class was complaining recently about interest rates resetting on his subprime mortgage. He asked the former military student why he hadn’t opted for a traditional loan. The student told him he had on his main residence but not on the two investment condos he’d purchased.

That made sense, Hefner said, as housing prices grew a whopping 15% in 2005 and the expectation was that real estate values would continue to inflate.

“What works For more information on the Charleston real estate market click here

EXIT Realty Charleston Group

in booms may not work in busts,” he said.

Americans are comfortable with inflation and think in terms of increasing values, Hefner said. For instance, if you have an item worth $100 and sell it for $102, you feel good because you made a profit, even if you had to buy it back for $110. But if you have an item worth $100 and sell it for $98, that is a disappointing loss, even if you could take that $98 and buy two of the same items elsewhere because prices had since dropped.

“That’s the difference between real economics and finance,” Hefner said

To read the article visit: http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/news/26231-the-great-depression-not-even-close

Charleston

A turn in the South

Charleston economy continues to grow despite national economic challenges. Population growth as well as job growth will help maintain the Charleston housing market as one of the country’s finest. Charleston real estate has been and will continue to be in demand. Charleston continues to receive accolades from prominent National publications.

Dec 30th 2008 | CHARLESTON
From The Economist print edition

A blue-collar military town transforms itself into a white-collar security cluster

UNTIL the government closed it in 1996, the navy base in Charleston was the region’s economic engine. The navy was Charleston’s largest employer, directly providing work for more than 22,000 people. But after a decade of decay, some 340 acres (140 hectares) of the site is now part of a 3,000-acre redevelopment plan in North Charleston called Noisette, billed as “a city within a city” and costing $3 billion over 20 years. The redeveloped navy shipyard has already attracted a number of green businesses. Clemson University’s research campus has also moved there.

Partly as a result, the region’s economy is healthier and more diversified than it was a decade ago. Job growth for the Charleston region was 16.5% between 2000 and 2007; nationally, it was less than half that. Charleston’s growth in GDP, wages and bank deposits all outpace national averages. Household income has increased by 30% since 2000. In July Inc, a magazine for entrepreneurs, described it as among the best cities for doing business.

The armed forces still have an impact, generating $3.5 billion a year. Charleston is still home to an air force base, a training school for nuclear-power engineers, a naval weapons station, a Coast Guard training centre and Project SeaHawk, a model multi-agency anti-terrorism program. Convoys of “mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles” (MRAPs) drive along conspicuously in South Carolina’s picturesque Lowcountry. They are heading for Charleston’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Centre Atlantic (SPAWAR), where they are outfitted with communications, command and control equipment and prepared for shipment to Iraq and Afghanistan. SPAWAR is the navy’s engineering and research arm.

The heavily armored vehicles offer better protection against improvised explosive devices than Humvees do. Since their use has increased, troop deaths from roadside devices are said to have fallen by about 90%. MRAPS are mostly built by manufacturers based in Charleston, such as Force Protection, with much of the technology developed by local companies like SCRA and Science Applications International Corporation. Some 80% of SPAWAR’s projects involve partnerships with private business, according to Philipp Charles, the center’s technical director.

All these defense and security companies are attracting highly skilled workers. In September the Milken Institute declared the Charleston metro area, which includes North Charleston and Summerville, to be among the leading ten cities for job creation. Between 2000 and 2007 the number of people working in IT grew by 52% in the Charleston region; nationally, it went up by only 9%. The numbers of scientists, architects and engineers grew by 52%, while dropping 3% nationally. South Carolina has the second-highest concentration of industrial engineers in the country, after Michigan. Manufacturing is growing in Charleston, as factories expand and new ones open, even as it seems to be dying a public death in the rest of the country.

As a result, the area’s population has grown 10% to 603,000 since 2000 and is forecast to grow to 624,000 by 2010. And to top it all, National Geographic recently ranked Charleston as being among the 50 best places to live.

Not all is rosy. Charleston’s port has been struggling to compete with neighboring Savannah. On December 18th Maersk, the world’s largest ocean carrier, announced it would leave Charleston by 2011, citing high costs and union intransigence. This is a big blow: Maersk accounts for 25% of Charleston’s container volume. But for the most part Charleston is weathering the economic downturn well. Defense contractors are not relying solely on America for revenue. Force Protection, for instance, is building MRAPs for America’s allies. A hybrid carmaker plans to open there. The economy has slowed since the summer, according to Karen Kuchenbecker, of the Charleston Regional Development Alliance. But, she says, “We are holding our head above water.”

To read the article visit: http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12866425

For more information on the Charleston real estate market click here

EXIT Realty Charleston Group