MIKE MCABEE Coven Haircraft owner
PAGE 4 VOLUME 27 NUMBER 21 ■ CHARLESTONBUSINESS.COM
Larger venue
Charleston Wine and Food expands for 2022 to North Charleston Riverfront Park. Page 6
RAISING THE BAR
Part of the
Charleston takes new approach to housing crisis By Teri Errico Griffis
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Commercial King King Street commercial spaces fill up following pandemic vacancies. Page 30
Transparency, reinvestment bring Charleston School of Law back from the brink.
Ex-CEO sentenced
Former SCANA Corp. CEO Kevin Marsh gets two years in federal prison. Page 7
Uptown world
A $200 million mixed-use development coming to North Charleston. Page 15
INSIDE
Upfront................................. 2 SC Biz News Briefs................. 3 Small Business Spotlight........ 4 In Focus: Architecture, Engineering and Construction................29 List: General Contractors.....42 Bonus List: Commercial Moving & Storage Companies..........................43 At Work.............................. 45 Viewpoint............................47
OCTOBER 18 - 31, 2021 ■ $2.25
network
By Teri Errico Griffis
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tgriffis@scbiznews.com
ean Larry Cunningham was full of apologies after running a few minutes late to a meeting. A group of Charleston School of Law students had surprised him last-minute by dropping off a handful of handwritten thank you notes, expressing their appreciation to him for volunteering at a recent event. The bubbly moment was a far cry from where the law school was nearly eight years earlier, on the brink of disaster and on its way to permanently shuttering. Back then, school administrators were far more likely to receive correspondence related to lawsuits than sentimental cards. The hiccup in the school’s history began in 2013 when owners Robert Carr and George Kosko called an impromptu gathering of faculty to inform them that that the school would either have to close or be sold to InfiLaw, a Florida-based for-profit company that owned three law schools consid-
ered so-called “diploma mills,” including Charlotte School of Law. The Charleston law school was only 10 years old at that time. Devastated but determined students, alumni, and faculty pushed back — with two faculty members filing lawsuits — fearing that the sale would mar the school’s reputation and lower the standards of a Charleston School of Law education. The turning point came in October 2015 when Ed Bell, a Georgetown trial lawyer, stepped in as president and bought into the school, alongside Carr and Kosko, to save it from the sale to InFiLaw. Bell’s agreed to manage the school, while Carr and Kosko serve as members of the board, until the school goes nonprofit and the former owners are bought out. Since then, InfiLaw has gone out of business and all of its law schools are now closed, while Charleston School of Law years has clawed its way back from that See LAW SCHOOL, Page 12
Real Estate Power List
The most influential residential and commercial real estate professionals in South Carolina. Inside, Page 17
tgriffis@scbiznews.com
n less than 10 years, Charleston will need 16,351 affordable places for people to live, according to a city report. To find and build those affordable residences, Charleston is seeking out a real estate broker whose sole job will be to find land for projects. Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said of all the concerns the coronavirus pandemic has made worse, affordable housing has been near the top — especially as more people work from home and more people from other areas sought to move to the region. Demand grows higher, supply dwindles, prices go up. “We just have a huge thousand-pound gorilla in the room of the real estate market to contend with as we try to keep some housing affordable here,” Tecklenburg said. He understands Charleston market is dynamic with housing developments popping all over the region, but the downside is that the more affordable housing is being pushed farther and farther away from where most people work, exploding in Berkeley and Dorchester counties, and places like Johns Island in Charleston County, where land is much more affordable. “You just end up with a situation where what’s available for folks is they have to travel farther to get where it’s affordable,” he said. “And that’s not a good thing,” The mayor understands the dire need to create more housing and to make not only the process to find more affordable and attainable housing easier on residents, but on homebuilders too. That includes changing zoning and regulations that might incentivize companies that aren’t building affordable housing to possibly consider it down the line. Tecklenburg regularly discusses housing See HOUSING, Page 14