A $13.5 million flip, still no shovel in the ground

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The old Pepsi plant on Meeting Street Road has been announced twice and built zero times. In April 2020, Charlotte’s White Point Partners paid $8.05 million for the 5.6-acre site. First came a pitch for apartments, offices and retail. Then a smaller one: about 24,450 square feet of shops and 17,550 square feet of food and drink, plus outdoor dining. Neither got built.

In July, Atlanta’s Catalyst Development Partners bought it for $13.5 million, its first purchase in South Carolina. Let’s do the math.

Catalyst’s plan is 332 apartments in a five-story building, with retail. The city’s Design Review Board had it on the Oct. 5 agenda for preliminary approval, after asking back in April that the apartments sit farther from the neighboring cemetery. Next stop is technical review.

That’s one project. I wanted to know how many others are in line, so I went back four years (Morrison Yard had to make the list, everyone knows Morrison Yard) and counted every project of 150-plus units on the peninsula, Upper Peninsula included.

Fifteen. Four are open. One is under construction. Two, including this one, are in city review. Eight are proposals, almost 2,000 units, where I could not find a confirmed start. Treat it as a floor: I built the list from news coverage, city agendas and a 2024 market pipeline report, not a paid database.

Now look at when the four opened.

Four buildings in about a year, then a quiet stretch. Here is every project on the list.

So is anyone actually moving in to fill all of this? Charleston County grew by 2,900 people, or 0.68%, from 2024 to 2025. Most of that was international arrivals and births.

Regionally, Q3 2024 was the biggest quarter of apartment deliveries since 2017, and occupancy slid to 89.4%. “Everyone is moving here” is not what the county numbers show.

The pushback depends on where you stand. The Harleston Village Association, on the 296-unit plan at 295 Calhoun, called it “another case of growth outpacing infrastructure.” Up on the Upper Peninsula it is milder. The Preservation Society says developers “haven’t delivered” on the community benefits promised for the zone, and it wants stormwater management in Morrison Yard’s next phase.

Here is what I keep coming back to. The board that looks at these buildings judges design. Traffic and drainage get handled in technical review and in the city’s Peninsula Plan, which is taking public input through Oct. 29.

Charleston has a housing affordability problem, both for-sale and rental properties. More supply can be a primary mover towards addressing this. But it must be mitigated by recognizing Charleston is a low-lying coastal town with widespread flooding issues.

Developers of high-intensity projects like these should be required to pay per-unit impact fees to address public infrastructure. And it can’t be a cursory fee. It has to be enough to make developers thoughtful and consider the impact of their projects on the city, whether in areas like the Westside, where I drove around large standing water a few days ago on Fishburne near The Citadel, or on James Island.

Sources: Post & Courier, July 2026, Post & Courier, 2021, Charleston Business, April 2020, Live 5 News, Oct. 6, 2026, City of Charleston Design Review Board agenda, Oct. 5, 2026, Live 5 News on 295 Calhoun, USAFacts, SCBiz, Preservation Society, Live 5 News on the Peninsula Plan, Charleston construction pipeline, Q2 2024, developer and contractor releases for the four openings.