The Island Packet from Hilton Head Island, South Carolina • 23

Classified Ads Page 14 Harney Page 6 Quinn Page 4 Rukeyser Page 5 THE ISLAND PACKET Business September 13 1985 SECTION Brian La PeterStaff Photo y' 4J WHlZ' i Sak 1 KHKIr 71 HHL is 'K Mike Posey left and Margaret Mellinger dig into area's past Along with the selling comes lots of telling Haig Point sales under way By RAN SMITH Haig developer is pull ing its ideas for the future straight out of the past and lit erally out of the ground International Paper Realty Corp which paid $88 million for the 1000 acre Daufuskie Island tract a year ago has been dig ging out tabby ruins stories in formation and clues about the history of Daufuskie During the work day the digging is done by "shovel by archeologists and ar chitects After hours the digging is done by conventional historical research methods including a lot of questioning and a lot of lis tening to old timers As the company sells the ap proximate one acre lots for 4J 1 Jn JIM I $50000 to $180000 each it mar kets along with the land the tra dition it has been learning about The selling and the telling picked up speed this week soon after brokers joined the staff and as bulldozers and motor graders got trails in shape for four wheel drive or horse travel The being planned for people who will see something special in the ways the island's earliest settlers used oyster shells in the walls of their houses in the quietness of the moss draped lanes and in the 112 year Artist's conception of Haig Point Clubhouse old lighthouse that once guided sailing vessels around the shoals of the waterways Mike Ross the company's president sees the development as a settlement that like those of 200 years ago makes the most of the resources without destroying them Cedar roofed pier Shortly on the Cooper River portion of the Intracoastal Water way boaters will see Internation al Paper's first structure on Dau fuskie It will be a cedar roofed pier with floating docks a facility designed to function as the land ing for guests and property own ers but to look like something out of the steamboat days The Atlanta architect having been told to design something with the feel of the Lowcountry from the 1790 1890 era has easily enough convinced company offi (See HAIG Page 2 C) jy Jj A urrTOM MklBMNB A Cable warning system ignites TV dispute By RUTTER The average island TV watcher may not know it but there is a tele vision war of sorts heating up on Hil ton Head The parties involved are WTGS the new independent station broad casting from Hardeeville and Plan tation Cablevision Hilton ca ble TV franchise While the island cable franchise has a business as usual posture leaders at the new independent sta tion are getting upset The battle has been smoldering for several months but sparks began to fly last week when town officials an nounced Plantation Cablevision would set up a $4200 televised emer gency warning system for the is land Still reeling from Plantation Ca decision not to carry WTGS news of the emergency warning system contract was not an announcement the owners of WTGS took kindly to According to Mark Kane Gold stein president and chairman of American Communications and Television Inc (ACTV) the Gaines ville la based telecommunica tions corporation that owns 80 per cent of WTGS the warning system is an example of the cable operator in the Hil ton Head area television market And he said his firm is investigat ing taking legal action against Plan tation Cablevision because the cable company is WTGS out of the The rift between WTGS and Plan tation Cablevision has a short yet complicated history The face off began in mid July when a federal appeals court disal lowed the ederal Communication Commission's so called car rules The ruling freed cable operators nationwide from carrying all com mercial stations within 35 miles of the community served as well as other stations in the same television market and those viewed in the or Plantation Cablevision the decision meant it could drop many duplicate stations it was formerly forced to carry It also meant the company was not obligated by law to carry WTGS which was just gearing up to sign on the air when the ruling occurred So the cable system did not pick up the new station when it signed on Sept 1 Cable subscribers who want to watch the new station which ap pears here on Channel 28 must hook Mark Goldstein 4 ft 9 A up a UH antenna and switch their sets over to UH in order to receive the station According to Charles Renwick vice president and general manager of Plantation Cablevision he pick up WTGS because the cable company was studying program ming options created when the rules were struck down are going to evaluate all the Renwick told Hie Packet in late August have to evaluate what stations offer the best pro gramming for our He also said the appeals court rul ing may be appealed and until the dust settles he want to chance confusing subscribers by changing the line up But Goldstein sees the story in a different way Cablevision rep resents a defacto monopoly on the is land" he said is a private cor poration deciding what the community can and see It is arranging the competition on the is land and trying to squeeze us out of the market understand why Mr Renwick want to subsidize a compet itor He can now because the rules are effectively dead sell advertising on his cable system are a commercial station also in the business of selling advertising But we feel be have to protect his business by hurting his Goldstein said In August Renwick did tell The Packet WTGS represented competi tion to his cable company but in (See TV Page 3 C) August building nears $10 million By NANCY RUTTER 'Construction permits for the club house at the new golf course at Palmetto Dunes Resort new timesharing units at Shipyard Plan ation and the second phase of Tree tqps villa complex on Cordillo Park why highlight the list of 44 building permits issued on the island in the month of August by the town Plan ning and Inspection Department Complete list Page 8 The total for contractors' declared value for materials and labor asso ciated with the permits was more than $97 million according to the Planning and Inspection Depart ynent's construction permit sum ptuary issued last week Construction costs of the new Ar thur Hills Golf Course Clubhouse was set at more than $825000 Charles Pigg vice president ofGreenwood Development Corp the parent company of Palmetto DunesResort and Shelter Cover Harbour paid will be a very nice facility lit will be approximately 10000 Square feet and feature a pro shop Hanked on one side by a dining room land locker rooms for men and wom len on the Pigg said the clubhouse will alsohave a covered deck ppace" surrounding the building It jvill overlook four holes of the courseand the driving range Six building permits were issued lo Delta Group Corp for the second Jhase of Treetops villas last month New at reetops A According to Bradley ulkerson construction manager for the Delta Group the permits were issued for construction for the initial phase of an additional 206 units planned for a 12 acre sight on Cordillo Parkway He said that construction of the 57 units is already underway ulker son added that there will be a total of four construction phases to complete all 206 proposed units He said he expects some of the units to be completed by late this year perhaps as early as Novem ber The value reported by the permit summary for the 57 unit pro See PERMITS Page 4 C) Experts say island offices will be filled Broker Steve Marlis optimistic about Orleans Centre awry fl I i By NANCY RUTTER You have to drive around Hilton Head twice before you notice there are a lot office buildings here a lot of empty office buildings But before you get the feeling this may be a ghost town in the making listen to local real estate agents de velopers builders and lenders They say the truth is things aren't as bad as they look Yes Hilton Head's office market is somewhat overbuilt now sources have told The Packet over the last two weeks But the island's business community is growing they say and sooner or later that extra office space will be absorbed The basic reason offices have been sprouting up faster than weeds in a vegetable garden over the past few years is simple supply and demand not long ago there enough offices to go around few years ago apartment com plexes were springing up to house the people moving to the saiid James Suddes director of commercial leasing for Hilton Head Co Realty as the community grew we didn't have the office space to accommodate that growth had new businesses coming to the island and existing businesses doubling and tripling their space Beacon inancial for example went from 1000 square feet of office space to over 4000 in a very short time "The demand was there for more space so everybody jumped on the bandwagon and started building of fices Office construction is a cy clical business" Suddes said The problem with such a supply and demand building cycle howev er is that it's not a perfect science according to Paul Proffitt vice pres ident of Southern Bank's commer cial loan division "The building of office space here is typical of a normal business cycle And in a normal business cycle it's almost impossible to match up sup ply with demand "When I came here seven years ago you couldn't find an office Now there's more than enough out there to rent" Proffitt said What more Joe Harden presi dent of Joe Harden Builders Inc said supply and demand forces tend to get lost in the shuffle once a build ing boom starts the cycle demands more building you often get the leader' types jumping into the mar Harden explained starts building and pretty soon ev eryone is building whether it's of fices or villas often no one does the market research to see what the market place can withstand" Harden said Supply mushrooms Patrick Keenan real estate ap praiser and consultant with Keenan Associates Inc said once offices began to fill up on Hilton Head in the early 1980s building boomed and supply began to overstep demand 1983 at least three office con do buildings the Professional Building on US 278 Edge (See OICE Page 2 C).