Brian Hicks

1 month ago | postandcourier.com | Brian Hicks

A ceremony today will launch the redevelopment of Ashley Landing shopping center, which is reason enough to celebrate. The 35-acre, $348 million mixed-use complex will transform a 1970s-era plaza — along with the barren site of the former Sumar Street Piggly Wiggly — into a gathering place of apartments, townhomes, green space, stores and restaurants. West Ashley sorely needs that sort of revitalization, and this development hits that all-important live-work-play trifecta.

1 month ago | postandcourier.com | Brian Hicks

Realtors probably still get the vapors any time they land a listing in Mount Pleasant’s Old Village. Sure, that’s partly because most of those properties come with a decimal point in the price tag. But they also know it’ll be the easiest ad copy they’ll write all year. Take a stroll down streets lined with live oaks, where cottages and mansions alike sit on generous, shaded lots, where you can watch the sun set over the most breathtaking views of Charleston Harbor.

1 month ago | postandcourier.com | Brian Hicks

Some town of James Island residents are raising a stink because their property taxes are going up. They’re on social media blasting the mayor and council, vowing retribution at the ballot box, proclaiming these elected leaders don’t care about their fire service or garbage pick-up. Which is a tad bizarre because the town of James Island doesn’t fight fires or pick up garbage … or much of anything. It doesn’t even charge property taxes.

1 month ago | postandcourier.com | Brian Hicks

It’s totally unfair to suggest that charging $100 for Isle of Palms seasonal parking passes is “price gouging.”Even if, in this case, “seasonal” actually means “weekly.”No, think of this more like a tariff — a tax on others to influence trade. As in, parking pass costs are meant to persuade folks to “trade” any plans of an IOP outing for a jaunt to, say, Folly Beach or Sullivan’s Island. Like that.

2 months ago | postandcourier.com | Brian Hicks

Nearly 20 years ago, the North Charleston Winn-Dixie across from the Navy hospital closed its doors forever. The Piggly Wiggly on Rivers Avenue followed suit a few months later. Those were the last of about a half-dozen grocery stores that Mayor Reggie Burgess remembers from his childhood in Union Heights. And their closing was about the last reverberation of the federal government’s decision to shutter the Navy base a decade earlier.