Wedding & Event Venue near Saint George, SC

DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - What once stood as a detention center in Saint George is on its way to becoming a place of healing.

One Lowcountry rural community is one step closer to getting the health care access it needs.

The primary care facility will be off of Railroad Avenue near the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office in Saint George. It’s a team project with Dorchester County, the Medical University of South Carolina, the Town of Saint George and state officials.

“It’s public safety and its basic level is providing help to the community, and that’s what this does,” Dorchester County Council Chairman and Representative Council for District Two, David Chennis, said.

The future of this facility will have primary care doctors with mobile MRIs, X-rays and about every other service you may need.

The funding is coming from a $1 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture, and over $2 million of funding comes from the American Rescue Plan Act, with the help of Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Jim Clyburn, making this a bipartisan team.

“When you recycle something to make it better for the community, it’s a great thing,” Mayor of Saint George Kevin R. Hart said.

He said that as they continue to grow as a town, they need proper resources in a rural community.

“It’s tough to have somebody come out at 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning when you have an emergency because an emergency doesn’t really have any time. I mean it when it happens, it happens,” Hart said.

Chennis said this is a symbol of choosing education over incarceration.

“That was the opportunity here to convert a jail that was locking people up into providing a service that many people didn’t have access to or took a while to get access to,” he said.

Access is one of the biggest barriers most patients struggle with, especially in rural communities, often considered healthcare deserts.

That’s why MUSC wanted to take part in this, providing primary care takers and other healthcare providers.

“For example, one of the nurses that’s going to be coming here to work and be in this community, she’s from here. So to be able to bring a health care provider back to her community, I think that’s fabulous,” Dr. Saju Joy, the chief executive officer of MUSC Health Charleston Division, said.

MUSC Health will lease the health care facility, which includes seven exam rooms for primary care and occupational health services. There will be by-appointment and virtual visits available, including annual wellness exams, sports physicals, vaccinations, nutritional and diet support, sick and injury visits, chronic condition management, hospital discharge follow-up visits and point-of-care laboratory testing.

The site will be a single-story 6,336-square-foot health care facility that will not only serve Saint George, but the surrounding communities as well. The plan is to also have mental health services for patients.

“The short-term vision is nice, and I realize everybody’s looking at funding all the time, but that long-term vision is what’s important. And the long-term vision for this facility is why it’s being done today,” Chennis said.

Chennis also said this will help eliminate community members having to travel to and from proper Charleston, in turn helping with traffic as a whole.

The new facility is expected to open in early 2026.

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A new private health club and wellness facility is set to open at Brooklyn Heights’ famous St. George Tower, Commercial Observer has learned.

East Gate Investors and SC Holdings have signed a 29-year lease to open a 52,000-square-foot wellness center on the lower levels, ground floor and second floor of the St. George Tower at 43 Clark Street, according to broker Helmsley Spear.

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Built in stages between 1885 and 1929, the 10-story building on the corner of Clark and Hicks streets was formerly home to the St. George Hotel, once the city’s largest hotel with 2,632 rooms at its peak, according to the building’s website.

The property, owned by the St. George Tower co-op and Grill Owners Corporation, was converted into a luxury residential co-op in 1984, and its facade was restored as recently as five years ago, Helmsley Spear said.

It’s unclear when East Gate and SC Holdings’ new health hub will open at the building, but it will be in addition to the tower’s 275 residential units.

“This facility will be a wonderful complement not only to the residential co-op, but to the entire Brooklyn Heights community,” Helmsley Spear’s Michael Dubin, who represented the co-op in the deal, said in a statement.

“The co-op envisions a high-end private health, wellness and sports facility and club that will offer a superior suite of amenities unavailable today within this vibrant Brooklyn neighborhood,” Dubin added.

The facility will also be “built around wellness, racquet sports, leisure and community,” a spokesperson for SC Holdings said.

The asking rent was unclear, but a report from the Real Estate Board of New York found retail rents in Brooklyn Heights averaged $114 per square foot in 2024 (the most recent data available).

Law firm DL Partners’ Bruce Lederman and Grace Betancourt also represented the St. George Tower co-op board in the deal, according to Helmsley Spear. It’s unclear who brokered the deal for East Gate and SC Holdings.

Lederman and spokespeople for the landlords and East Gate did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The deal comes after a complicated history for the St. George Hotel, which once occupied seven buildings and covered the entire block encompassed by Clark, Hicks, Pineapple and Henry streets, according to the building’s website.

Between 1963 and 1968, the hotel was sold several times — often under the threat of foreclosure — and was the focus of complex lawsuits and bankruptcy proceedings, the website said.

Its occupancy numbers dwindled throughout the 1970s, and the property was ultimately converted into rental apartments in the 1980s, but not without “unhappy tenants, rent strikes, lawsuits and other problems,” according to the website.

Now, the building sits next to student housing center Educational Housing Services at 55 Clark Street and a block from coffee shop Joe Coffee at 102 Hicks Street.

Isabelle Durso can be reached at idurso@commercialobserver.com.