Copyright Charleston Post and Courier
CHARLESTON — City leaders will travel to Europe next week for a whirlwind, week-long, three-city tour meant to inspire the redevelopment of about 70 acres of waterfront property in historic downtown. Mayor William Cogswell, City Councilman Mike Seekings and the city’s planning manager, Christopher Morgan, will join representatives from the Historic Charleston Foundation, the Preservation Society of Charleston, the Coastal Conservation League, the Savannah-based architecture firm Sottile & Sottile and Beemok Capital abroad. Beemok Capital is the company owned by Ben Navarro that is under contract to acquire the Union Pier port terminal, which is the focus of the group’s research in London, Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Navarro will not be part of the delegation, according to several of the attendees, nor is he footing the bill. Each organization is paying the way for its representative, though taxpayers are covering most of Cogswell’s and Morgan’s travel, lodging and food. Seekings, who is departing a few days later than the rest of the group so he can be home for election day on Nov. 4, is paying his own expenses, he told The Post and Courier. “This will be the design team that will be guiding the most significant waterfront development our city’s seen in a generation,” Seekings said. “Therefore I’m willing to use my own money to the benefit of our residents, not at the expense of taxpayers.” City spokeswoman Deja Knight McMillan couldn’t provide the total cost yet, but said once receipts are collected after the trip, she would share the bill. She added that the city would only cover what is allowed under federal travel guidelines set by the U.S. State Department. If Cogswell or Morgan spend more than the per diem rate, they must cover the overage, she said. Insights from the trip will help guide how developers might extend Charleston’s historic fabric into what Navarro is calling the city’s “next great neighborhood.” Historic Charleston Foundation president and CEO Winslow Hastie said he pitched the trip on a whim saying how “incredibly inspiring” a similar trip to Amsterdam had been back in 2018. It initiated a months-long study of Charleston’s most persistent flooding issues called the Dutch Dialogues. “We still everyday take lessons from that trip,” said Seekings, who also went on the earlier trip to The Netherlands. “Hopefully, this one will be just as productive.” Architect Christian Sottile helped set the jam-packed itinerary that Seekings said is about 45 pages long. “It's a research trip,” Sottile said. The delegation will visit development projects like Poundbury in England, which The New York Times described as an “architectural theme park.” The town is relatively new — construction begin in the 1990s — but is built to resemble buildings from at least 100 years ago. They also plan to meet with influential European architects like Quinlan Terry, who designed a large-scale mixed-use project in Surrey, England, called Richmond Riverside, which references 18th century architectural styles. In Amsterdam, which Sottile called “another Lowcountry,” the group will explore development over time as buildings grew out in rings around the original medieval city. “We’re looking for examples of excellent waterfront development, particularly those located in a historic context like Union Pier, and how to do that in a way that is respectful and compatible with downtown Charleston,” Hastie said. The group, apart from Seekings, departs Nov. 3 and will return Nov. 11.
