There's a stretch of Meeting Street that's been quietly holding its breath for a while now.
At 578 Meeting, a worn pair of warehouse buildings have sat mostly forgotten since Regis Milk shut down in 2011 — capping more than 50 years of dairy operations on a site that started, of all things, as a motorcycle shop in the 1920s. That's a lot of history packed into 2.4 acres.
But the waiting is almost over.
From milk runs to mixed-use
Georgia-based Flournoy Development Group picked up the property last July for $10 million — after it sat on the market for five years — and is now moving forward with plans to build Ellison on Meeting, a 200-unit mixed-use development with a pool, fitness center, and 5,000 square feet of street-level retail.
Plans went before Charleston's Technical Review Committee on Feb. 19, setting next steps in motion. Demolition of the existing buildings, sidewalk, and concrete pad would come first.
This will be Flournoy's third swing in the Lowcountry. They developed the 300-unit 35 Folly Apartments on James Island and the 290-unit Windsor Club at Wescott Plantation in North Charleston. They know this market.
The catch
No workforce housing is included in the plans. Instead, Flournoy will pay a fee in lieu to the city before construction wraps — a mechanism that's become increasingly common, and increasingly debated, as Charleston navigates its affordability squeeze.
It won't be the last time that conversation comes up on this one.
Why it matters
Meeting Street is having a moment. This block — tucked between Stuart and Johnson streets, steps from the Upper Peninsula's ongoing transformation — is exactly the kind of infill site the city has been eyeing for denser, walkable development.
Two hundred units of new housing downtown isn't nothing. Neither is 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail with that kind of Meeting Street frontage.
The name Ellison on Meeting is a nod to William Ellsworth, who opened Charleston Motorcycle Co. in that small whitewashed brick building back in the early 1920s. A century later, the address is about to look completely different.
Charleston keeps changing. This corner just got its turn.
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