Urban Infill Offers Downtown Growth

Urban infill is sort of the opposite of building in the suburbs. Instead of moving out of the city onto a nice, big lot with room for a nice, big house, one finds a bit of "extra" space in the heart of things and squeezes the most out of every inch inside and out. Many people want to loudly declare one better than the other. As a realtor I see it more as a question of preference and think it's all to the good for Charleston to offer a broader range of choice – new homes, downtown with off-street parking! Who would have thought?

"Graham Powell’s Spring Street residence has two features that are hard to find in the historic Holy City: new construction and that most coveted of amenities, off-street parking. Powell, an attorney who works downtown, said he was looking for something unique on the peninsula when he learned of a developer’s plans to build four new residences behind a circa-1840 home.

'When I saw the initial plan for it, it just looked unique but at the same time, it was in downtown Charleston,' Powell said. 'That is kind of hard to pull off.'

Powell also liked the idea of buying into an urban infill project. 'It’s good — sort of the antithesis of sprawl,' he said, adding that he also liked the new construction. 'There are (new) developments and building techniques (that were) important to me. I would like to be downtown, but I don’t want something that’s old and leaks.'

Developer Patrick Pernell, a landscape architect, and his partner Jim Sloggett collaborated on the project with architect Luda Sobchuk of SGA Architecture. Pernell was drawn to the property because of the undeveloped land behind the main house. Still, the biggest challenge was space.

'It’s only about a quarter-acre and there are now six units,” Pernell said. “It’s a lot to get five houses with two parking spaces each, with private gardens, on a quarter-acre.'

Meeting the height, scale and mass requirements of the Board of Architectural Review was another challenge, Pernell said, since the new homes could not be taller than the older, historic home. All but one of the homes have been sold, and the last one is listed for $485,000."

Powell’s three-story home has three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths and a fireplace. It is clustered with three new two-bedroom homes and barely visible behind the historic home in front, which currently comprises two apartments that will be renovated into two condominiums."

For the full Charleston Regional Business Journal article: http://www.charlestonbusiness.com/pub/14_6/news/11604-1.html