Wedding & Event Venue Near Moncks Corner, SC.

UPDATE: After our report on Wednesday, DHEC reached out to News 2 letting us know they have approved the water permit, so the store can begin the process of opening. DETAILS HERE.

MONCKS CORNER, S.C. (WCBD) – People living in Moncks Corner have been long awaiting the opening of a new Publix shopping center. While the grocery store appears to be ready to open, many are now wondering “what is the holdup?”

“If you live in the area, you are excited about the store coming in. What we’re not excited about is how long it’s taking for it to open,” said Robert Esclavon, who stops by the center occasionally to see its progress.

The 75,000 square-foot Publix at the new Moncks Corner Marketplace was announced about two years ago. Today, things basically look finished – there are grocery carts inside, fixtures in place, and shelves waiting to be stocked. But still, the store sits unopened.

Based on a January 2021 press release, the shopping center was slated for completion in June 2022, with Publix expected to open in fall 2022.

“The few people I run into say it looks like it could be mid-September before it opens. I don’t know if they know what they’re talking about, but for a store that’s complete – except for product on the shelves – it makes you wonder what’s holding it up,” said Esclavon.

Esclavon reached out to News 2 to find out what is going on. Leaders with the Town of Moncks Corner said they are waiting on final approval from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

“Right now, we are just waiting on DHEC to approve the water supply system over there. All the engineering has been done- the water is clear, it’s just a matter of getting everything signed off on the state DHEC office and they’ll be able to start moving in people and supplies,” explained Douglas Polen, Moncks Corner Community Development Director.

One person, who was familiar with the construction project, said they had to wait a few weeks for Berkeley Water and Sanitation to get their water meters installed. That process is now complete, and they have been waiting on DHEC for the past week and a half.

Officials with DHEC tell News 2 they are going to see what they can do to expedite the rest of the approval process so the store can finally open for business.

Esclavon said that is why he called us for help.

“Just having you guys, like you guys research it a little bit and maybe you push them along to have this project move up … they’re ready to go, I think,” he said.

Moncks Corner officials said once DHEC gives its final approval, Publix could open in as little as three to four weeks.

The lights are on, the cameras are rolling, and the action is taking place in Moncks Corner.

The film industry is back in the Lowcountry, with filming kicking off Tuesday along Main Street.

“I kind of equivalate it to a major sporting event,” said Moncks Corner Mayor Michael Lockliear. “Because you’re going to bring people into town that usually wouldn’t come this way.”

With construction cones in place and law enforcement directing traffic, the stage is set for the pharmacy.

Delta Pharmacy has been transformed and prepped for Hollywood’s Woody Harrelson and Laura Linney, the stars of the drama film Suncoast.

But for Lockliear, the town and its businesses are the show's true stars.

“They’re going to be shooting all the way up until noon tonight,” he said. “They’re closing down Main Street at seven and will shoot on the Hwy 6 Main Street, so that’s exciting. It will expose those businesses, and it’s exciting to have a Hollywood studio production here in the Town of Moncks Corner.

Tuesday afternoon, the tents and truckloads of gear in Delta's parking lot caught the eye of Monica Early, who was shopping across the street.

“I knew something was going on, but I didn’t know what it was,” she said. “Put our little town on the map like it’s never been before. I believe you need to use local small towns when possible for these big movies. If you can use local, that just ups the value of your town.”

While Charleston has captured the eye of Hollywood in recent years with the filming of the series Outerbanks and Righteous Gemstones, Lockliear hopes the same recognition can translate to what he calls South Carolina’s best-kept secret.

“When people come from outside that normally wouldn’t come to Moncks Corner and see what we have to offer, they want to come back, and it’s great to have that,” he said.

Now is your chance to play a small role in Suncoast. To learn more on how to sign up to be an extra in the film, click here.

A fully leased shopping center in a small but fast-growing Lowcountry town has been sold just weeks after it made its debut.

An affiliate of Stockbridge Capital Group recently bought the Publix-anchored Moncks Corner Marketplace for $29.15 million, according to Berkeley County land records.

The deal worked out to about $400 a square foot.

The seller was Branch Properties, which began developing the 9-acre retail site along U.S. Highway 52 at Cypress Gardens Road in mid-2021. The Atlanta-based real estate investment firm is still handling the marketing and leasing of the property.

David Nix, managing director for acquisitions at Stockbridge, said Moncks Corner is “one of the fastest-growing submarkets” in the Charleston region. Several thousand homes are planned for areas in and around the county seat in developments such as Foxbank Plantation.

“Given its optimal location within a short distance to many of Charleston’s job centers and several surrounding master-planned residential communities, the area poses strong demographics,” Nix said.

He also described the fully occupied Moncks Corner Marketplace and other strategically located grocery store centers as “further proof of the demand for this type of e-commerce-resistant retail.”

The 72,300-square-foot property opened in September. About six months earlier, Stockbridge announced a deal to buy a dozen Southeast retail centers from Branch Properties that include Publix and rival supermarket chain Harris Teeter as their primary traffic draws.

The San Francisco-based private equity firm has been investing in commercial real estate in the Charleston area since at least 2013, when it paid $24.6 million for the Whole Foods-anchored Patriots Plaza in Mount Pleasant. The deal was one of the region’s first big retail acquisitions in the aftermath of the so-called Great Recession.

In 2018, Stockbridge added an industrial property to its portfolio when it bought the nearly 351,000-square-foot North Pointe Business Campus on North Rhett Avenue for $30.5 million.

The following year, the firm acquired the historic S.H. Kress & Co. on King Street, in the heart of the downtown Charleston shopping district. Stockbridge paid $19.5 million for the roughly 91-year-old mixed-use art-deco structure that includes “fast fashion” clothing retailer H&M and a law firm as its main tenants.

Nix said the Charleston region “continues to be an attractive market for Stockbridge,” citing the area’s population growth, expanding port and other favorable real estate investment attributes.

MONCKS CORNER, S.C. (WCIV) — It’s been a brutally tough start for the Berkeley Stags football team. 1-5 is not anything anybody in Moncks Corner is used to seeing. What the team is going through, nothing, compared to their head coach who has for much of it been unapologetically absent.

For years, we’ve called Dr. Jerry Brown the “Good Doctor.” He’s not a medical doctor. He is a good man.

“My wife had a situation where I had to step away for three weeks, tough to get on and get on solid ground,” says the legendary head man.

One of the sweetest ladies in Moncks Corner is his wife, Mary Ames Brown. Sweet, exemplified, by the thousands upon thousands of Monday morning cookies baked, after hundreds and hundreds of Friday night wins.

“I’ll say this, she is a lot better at what she does than I am at what I do. She is definitely in the hall of fame, at that level as far as coaches' wives. Everyone here in Moncks Corner loves her. She’s felt the prayers, and that’s been precious.”

She’s needed them.

Her health has been in decline of late. Jerry has been there to deliver whatever else she has needed.

Day and night, month after month- he’s by her side. Practicing, what he’s always preached to his players, preparing them to be husbands and fathers.

“Came to a clash with my two commitments in the world- football and my wife. It’s been a nightmare. Operations were successful, she got over there trying to recover. She had 30 days in the hospital. That’s tough. She is weak as water some days, some days she feels a bit better. It will take a long time to be back how she was and gain her stamina.”

With this change, a marked change in Berkeley’s success on the field. Understandably so, when the head coach is so much a part of the team that is so much a part of the town.

“Tough situation emotionally for me. I want to treat the kids well and continue in a positive manner, but it's tough because my mind and heart will be other places sometimes. When I’m in football, I focus 100 percent on football. When I am a caretaker, I focus wholly on her and a caretaker. It’s really hard to mix both worlds. I’m really a single-minded guy. I came to the game on Friday and I felt real bad, she was weak as water that day and struggling. You are caught in between. It’s a tug of war between two commitments I have and balance it.”

She presses on, and so does he. They know what’s most important, and they know what those “sickness and health” vows mean.

“She wants me to go and go, come here and be with the kids, but at the same time, she needs her man.”

On the other side of this, those sweet cookies, will be just what the “Good Doctor” ordered.

After an 18-year run in Goose Creek and unforeseen challenges presented by COVID-19, Dreamalot Books has gradually – but decidedly – gained a steady foothold in the Moncks Corner community as a welcoming haven of second-hand books for both area bibliophiles and those traveling in from Myrtle Beach and beyond to peruse the shop’s vast inventory at 1013 Old Highway 52.

The woman behind the retail shop’s success and inevitable twists and turns over the past 23 years is Cherry Collins, a self-described “book addict,” who would often resort to reading the backs of cereal boxes as a child in the absence of a paperback she could lose herself in.

“I skipped kindergarten, back then it wasn’t required because by the time I went to the first grade, I was reading on a fourth-grade level,” began the Lenoir, North Carolina native. “My dad said that I picked up a book and I never put one down. Needless to say, he was not surprised I opened a bookstore.”

What sets Dreamalot Books apart from other major book shops in the Lowcountry is the sense of familiarity regular clientele shares with Collins — commonly referred to as Miss Cherry — whose large indoor reservoir of more than 100,000 publications has maintained a quaintness that’s usually only found in much smaller shopping venues.

Dreamalot’s maze-like layout allows patrons to set off on their own personal journeys during which they may spend upwards of an hour combing through assorted categories of children’s books, romance novels, biographies and collector’s items that most adults haven’t read since they were carrying a lunchbox to elementary school.

Those who run out of time while scouring the seemingly boundless inventory will usually rush back the next day or later that same week to complete their quest for published treasures that typically go for anywhere from one to five dollars.

Miss Cherry’s ample hodgepodge of books are the result of numerous donations and trade-ins that keeps the in-store supply constantly circulating.

But while Miss Cherry has her hands full with paying the bills (rent, general overhead, etc.) and keeping her stock organized, she also serves the greater purpose of assisting customers by informing them of what’s available and even matching her store items with the literary tastes of a certain individual.

“It’s not always about the money, it’s more about getting the book where it needs to go, the person it needs to go to. That one was meant to go to her,” she says while checking out a happy consumer who had just purchased an old, hard-to-find copy of “Dick and Jane.”

Her personal, heartfelt relationship with books permeates the entire showroom, which attracts all types, including young, old, homeless folks and autistic individuals who’ve cultivated a special liking to Dreamalot.

“You get that used-bookstore feel, the home feel. You can’t get that in a new store. Everybody feels really comfortable in here. We have a lot of autistic children who come in. Autistic children, you know, are hard to take shopping. They don’t do well in stores. In here, the only problem I’ve ever had with autistic children is getting them to leave,” she quips.

“They like it; they like that there’s a maze through the shelves [and] that’s it’s closer and you can’t get a crowd of people around you. There are treasures to find. You can come in and be here all day and not see all of the treasures that are hiding in the nooks and crannies — and it constantly changes. You never know what you’re going to find.”

The fact that the Lowcountry’s baroness of fine books deals exclusively with low-priced used copy doesn’t compel her to announce sales and/or specials, which in this economy, she observes, has become essential for those struggling with car dues, home/education expenses and sundry forms of debt.

However, the real value presented by her treasure trove of books, according to Miss Cherry, is the “sanity” they offer to folks saddled with real-world problems who sometimes need an escape from the mundane.

Dreamalot also has a mini cafe’ rest area where people can sit and stay awhile while thumbing through their selected books or magazines of interest.

Recently, Collins has begun partnering with neighborhood “food fairies,” who regularly drop in and drop off boxes of edibles and other items for the homeless.

Yet all the hospitality and benevolence in the world doesn’t pay the light bill, and so to counter the rising costs of rent, utilities and other related expenses, the 23-year businesswoman has opted to carry goods other than books, such as toys, holiday decorations, DVDs, board games and a wide array of figurines.

What has truly caught fire at Dreamalot since moving to Moncks Corner is a growing allotment of puzzles, which has brought in new customers.

Financial demands aren’t the only hurdle Collins has had to grapple with in keeping the doors open, though, as she’s also negotiated her share of health concerns over the years, some of which have landed her in the hospital. Those physical issues prompted the longtime store owner to recruit Danielle Cutler Nabors as a business partner. The Pennsylvania-born mother of six, in fact, chips in with a lot of the heavy lifting.

Nabors, herself a voracious reader, enjoys listening to Collins dispense her encyclopedic knowledge as it pertains to authors and their literature.

When rattling off a list of writers she holds in high regard, Miss Cherry spoke glowingly of French novelist Jules Verne of “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” fame, as she deemed him “the last author who wrote anything original.”

Similarly, she lauded Simon Winchester — who counts “The Professor and the Madman” as his most heralded work — as an “awesome” writer with a unique style.

Conversely, Collins had no qualms critiquing Stephen King’s more recent literary productions, including “Under the Dome,” since the science-fiction master will sometimes regurgitate old scripts he previoulsy submitted for “The Twilight Zone” to generate content for his books — with the end result of having a fizzling effect.

Miss Cherry’s unfiltered insight on books and the people who write them is worth the price of admission for her legions of recurring customers, including “Penny,” who paid the bookstore a visit toward the end of The Berkeley Independent’s in-person interview.

“This is my happy place,” said the enthusiastic book connoisseur. “I love books, I love looking for them and finding things here that I’ve been looking for for a long time — it’s quite exciting. This is just a great, great place.”