Best Moving Company in Beaufort

Jake Higgins, the new owner of Beaufort’s drive-in theater, is planning improvements at the iconic outdoor entertainment venue just northwest of downtown.

But he promises not to fix what is not broken.

“We’re not going to mess with that retro feel,” Higgins told the Beaufort Gazette and Island Packet, “because there’s a lot of history there.”

On May 1, Higgins purchased the 44-year-old Highway 21 Drive-In at 55 Parker Drive from Joe and Bonnie Barth, the owners since 2003.

Several thousand people have already called or sent messages to Higgins about their cherished recollections of the drive-in. It may be the place you had a first date with somebody — or a final date with somebody, Higgins notes.

“It’s part of a lot of people’s lives,” Higgins said, “and we are not going to mess with that.”

The goal of buying the drive-in, which Higgins says calls family entertainment, wasn’t to make a lot of money, but rather “the memories.”

“I like to take things that are part of people’s memories or childhood and bring them back and bring them back better,” Higgins said. “And I think the drive-in has the ability to create memories with the current generation.”

Higgins is a trooper with the South Carolina Highway Patrol in Beaufort and Jasper counties, but he’s also experienced in the business world. He owns Which Wich, Kilwin’s, Dairy Queen and Bluffton Pizza Company in Bluffton; Coastal Sunset car washes in Bluffton and Beaufort; Coastal Sunset Property Services, a cleaning company, on Hilton Head; and Security Now USA, which offers security services in all 50 states. He recently opened The Olde Schoolhouse Restaurant in Port Royal.

The drive-in just northwest of downtown Beaufort off Highway 21 is 1.5 miles from the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. The Air Station has already booked a portion of the drive-in May 26 for a viewing of the new Top Gun movie, which features fighter jets similar to those based at the Air Station.

The permit for the property allows a drive-in, flea markets and 14 special events.

Higgins is planning to introduce a “true flea market” to the property. It will be open on weekends year-round and bring quality, affordable products closer to residents north of the Broad River, he says.

The flea markets, Higgins said, will not be a “circus,” he promises, or a just a farmers market. Vendors, Higgins says, will be selected by their residency, with Beaufort County, and then Jasper County, first in line to sell their wares.

“Because I don’t want other people coming from all over the place and making all the money,” Higgins said. “I want the money to stay in Beaufort and Jasper counties because our people need the help.”

Concerts will be added, too at some point, Higgins said, but they will be acoustic and small — maybe 500 to 700 people.

Improvements also are planned to make the concessions look more like a diner setting.

Movies are now being shown on three screens as opposed to two, another change since Higgins purchased the drive-in. The third screen already had been added by the Barths before Higgins brought the property but was not in use.

With 549 drive-ins nationally, they are rare compared to indoor screens, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners, which number 40,000. The Beaufort drive-in, which opened in 1978, is among the best, at least according to Travel Channel, which, in 2017, included it on a national list of 10 classic drive-ins. It’s one of three in South Carolina. The others are in Monetta and Greenwood.

Residents of the Point neighborhood are asking Beaufort to stop National Park Service-led public tours of the historic McKee-Smalls House, which they argue violate zoning rules, but the city has no plans to act at this time.

The property is owned by Billy and Paul Keyserling.

“The Owners are overtly authorizing and facilitating regular tours of the Property in clear violation of the residential limitations of the Zoning Ordinance,” attorney Austen Gowder, Jr. said in a letter to Beaufort City Attorney Bill Harvey. “The tours are so frequent and persistent as to be inconsistent with the residential use required by the Zoning Ordinance.”

The letter, written on behalf of Friends of the Point Neighborhood, Inc., includes photographs of visitors on the property, a tour bus on the street and a video showing NPS guides leading tours.

The group is made up of residents who want the historic McKee-Smalls House to remain a private residence with limited public use to minimize the impact on the neighborhood.

A minimum number of visits are occurring at the property, Billy Keyserling said, and the house is being rented out and remains a private residence.

Keyserling has said previously he has no involvement with or control over commercial tour buses that visit the area.

The zoning ordinance limits properties in the area to residential use, according to the residents’ letter to the city, which requests that “the City cause the Owner of the Property to immediately cease and desist violating the Zoning Ordinance.”

It’s the second move this month to end the tours of the property. The Historic Beaufort Foundation has asked a judge to force the Keyserlings to honor an easement it holds on the McKee-Smalls house that limits what groups can visit the property and when. The easement also requires that the house remain a private residence.

But Harvey, the city attorney, said Thursday the city “will leave the resolution to the courts” in light of HBF’s pending litigation, and won’t get involved.

Neighbors are worried the house will cease to be a home and become more of a museum or public attraction, disrupting the neighborhood’s quality of life.

The Keyserlings say that isn’t their plan, although they hope one day to see the property under the NPS management. The Keyserlings already have an agreement with NPS in which rangers give guided tours of the property, which has sparked the legal action.

The McKee family built the house. The exact year isn’t known. Historians believe it was about 1835 but it may have been earlier. Smalls, a former Congressman, Civil War hero and slave, bought it in 1864.

This story was originally published May 12, 2022 2:04 PM.

Beaufort faces a daunting future due to a growing population and associated problems like increasing housing costs and traffic congestion, in addition to rising seas that could inundate parts of the city, said Victor Dover, a nationally recognized leader in city planning.

Beaufort leaders are holding a two-day retreat this week at St. Helena Island Library to talk about the future development challenges facing the city and how it might best prepare through strategic planning and development codes. Dover, of Miami-based Dover, Kohl & Partners, will assist them.

The city, he said, could head for the bunker and try to stop the dramatic population growth, but he said that won’t work. Instead, he’s advising its leaders and residents to view the growth as a “wave of prosperity,” seizing the moment to plan for the kind of community they really want.

And residents, Dover noted, will not get the city they want from the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.

“They get it from drawing lines on a map and showing it to their neighbors and their fellow leaders and saying, ‘How about like this?” Dover said. “Actually deciding what they want the future to be like.”

Beaufort’s growth isn’t new. It’s been fueled in part by positive notice in national publications like Southern Living and Architectural Digest. But between 2010 and 2020, Beaufort County’s population grew by more than 15%, making relentless extension of development a real threat to the Lowcountry including Beaufort, he added.

As opposed to national coverage of the city, local headlines and stories about development, Dover said, reflect “kind of a fear factor.”

“Can we handle it? Can we direct it? Can we survive it?”

Mayor Stephen Murray said the city is seeing real impacts. Housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable. There are not enough jobs that pay a living wage. Rural areas are being clear-cut to make way for the next suburban development.

Murray called Beaufort “one of the most special places on the planet” because of its quality of life, natural resources and historic structures.

At the same time, “I also think we’re right to be nervous about the future,” he said.

Dover is assisting the city in “place-making” during the retreat, which began Wednesday and concludes Thursday. The focus is polishing the Beaufort Code, which guides development, and strategic planning. The meetings will be livestreamed on the city’s Facebook page.

“The future will be different for sure,” Murray said, “but working together it’s possible our region is even more remarkable than it is today.”

During a talk Tuesday evening at the University of South Carolina Beaufort, sponsored by the Coastal Conservation League, and USCB Center for the Arts and the city, Dover spoke about the increasing development pressures facing the Lowcountry.

“First of all,” he said, when asked how residents should view the city’s development rules and development as it prepares for the continued growth, “calm down.”

Issues involving city code and land development are emotional and residents can get as mad as a hornet but consider that residents come from different points of view, he said. One person, for example, might be defending a neighborhood, he said, while another may be concerned about private property rights.

Dover advised working as a team and loving each other in the process. Yes, loving each other. “I’m not kidding,” he said. “That’s really the answer.”

Ensuring that the city’s planning decisions and vision are implemented requires “eternal vigilance,” Dover said, adding that residents will get the town they deserve but only if they stick up for it.

Effective planning in the future also will require that the city’s elected officials to stick to the code, and that members of the planning staff accurately interpret the rules, Dover added.

Developers, he said, can be friends as opposed to foes but they need to get the message quickly that the city won’t back down from its standards. Some may threaten to walk away.

“Then say, ‘Walk,’ because if the local government blinks every time a developer says boo, you’re never going to get the quality you want,” Dover said.

But he encouraged the city to be business friendly, too, selling its approach to getting quality development.

“Be proud of it,” Dover said. “This is Beaufort, we built Newpoint and Habersham.”

The Newpoint development on Lady’s Island is a traditional residential neighborhood with front porches and walking paths and lots of trees that foster a community and a sense of place. It was developed in the 1990s by Vince Graham and Bob Turner.

The Habersham community, just west of Beaufort, another mixed-use development with a range of housing styles, has been ranked one of the best coastal communities in the country. It boasts several restaurants.

“The solutions are staring you right in your face,” said Dover, referring to the ideas implemented in those developments.

And Dover noted the city’s civic master plan, one of the city’s most important documents, already encourages mixed-use urban neighborhoods where people can get around by foot and bicycle if they want. “That’s your textbook.”

Habersham and Newpoint, he said, took the DNA of the historic homes and neighborhoods in Beaufort — such as porches, narrow lots facing the streets and interconnected streets — and “reused it.” Having more people, he adds, supports commerce.

“It’s not the density that determines whether a place is really appealing and feels like good human habitat,” Dover said. “It’s the design.”

Large lot development with the purported goal of minimizing impacts to the land just makes those impacts worse, Dover said, with each house sitting on a lot too large to mow and not large enough to plow.

“Don’t do this,” said Dover, pointing to a design showing three-acre lot after three-acre lot that he called a kind of “social zoning” accessible only to those with means.

Beaufort must also consider sea level rise in its planning, the planner said.

Inundation maps have good and bad news for Beaufort. Besides serious storms, he said the number of days of flooding will increase. Some very historic places in the city are vulnerable and protecting them will require intervention.

“It has to be part of how you plan here,” Dover said. “And I know that’s a matter of constant concern among your leaders.”

As for transportation, Dover said “speed kills.” The slower the speed of the moving vehicles, the more people will survive. Moreover, he added, people just tend to avoid crosswalks on busy roads with high speed limits, but he noted that neighborhoods and public squares can be designed in ways where traffic and pedestrians safely coexist.

Dover previously authored the town of Port Royal revitalization plan and Beaufort’s Boundary Street plan. He co-authored the book, “Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns.”

Going forward, one of the Beaufort’s biggest challenges is that rents are rising faster than incomes, he said. That’s a problem, especially for those who are working hard to make the Lowcountry a nice place such as those who work in the service industry.

“To simply say you should just live somewhere else where it’s cheaper is not the answer,” he said.

For the most part, the housing industry has stopped producing units for the “missing middle,” Dover said. The city should work to reawaken it, he said, by making the rule book more friendly to small developers instead of recruiting larger builders.

Beaufort’s preparations for population increases don’t just have local consequences.

In his work around the country assisting communities in their planning efforts, Dover notes, he shows pictures of Beaufort’s neighborhoods and streets — and Port Royal and Charleston. The photographs help leaders visualize landscape changes before land is converted.

“If you wonder why I think it’s so important that you get it right in the Lowcountry,” Dover said, “it’s because the whole world is watching how you deal with these interrelated challenges.”

The Beaufort City Council is conducting a retreat from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday at St. Helena Public Library, 6355 Jonathan Francis Senior Road, St. Helena.

The public is invited and the meeting will be livestreamed on the City’s Facebook page. The agenda includes discussion of strategic and capital improvement plans and the Beaufort Development Code.

This story was originally published April 27, 2022 11:55 AM.

If you’re looking for an activity to do with your family this weekend, you might want to consider playing a round of miniature golf. Every second Saturday of May is National Miniature Golf Day.

What better way to celebrate than packing your loved ones into the car and heading to your nearest mini-golf course.

Try out your best putt-putt skills at one or all of Beaufort County’s five miniature golf courses.

Pirate’s Island Adventure Golf is located on Hilton Head Island and sports a swashbuckling, pirate theme for any adventurous miniature golfer. ‘Show no quarter’ to your fellow golfers with your putting skills as you explore the two different courses. Golfers have the option to follow in the footsteps of one of two pirates: Blackbeard or Captain Kidd.

Glowcountry Indoor Mini Golf is located off of Robert Smalls Parkway in Beaufort. With blacklights and bright, glowing colors, this indoor course with the option to bring your own adult beverage is certainly different from the usual miniature golf course some may be accustomed to visiting. Making a hole-in-one would certainly be impressive.

Adventure Cove Miniature Golf and Arcade offers two options for celebrating this national holiday. Guests can choose from either Paradise Falls or Lost Lagoon as their 18-hole golf course. This mini-golf course is located on Hilton Head Island at the corner of William Hilton Parkway & Folly Field Road.

Legendary Golf is a country club-style miniature golf course which gives its golfers the feeling of playing a full 18 holes on one of the many nearby club’s fairways — just in miniature. Located on Hilton Head Island, Legendary Golf gives you the opportunity to play two different golf courses labeled as “professional” or “championship.”

The Zone is a newer edition to Beaufort County that is located off Buckwalter Parkway in Bluffton. It features an indoor, glow-in-the-dark miniature golf course along with a multitude of other activities for the family to enjoy. The Zone features activities such as batting cages, laser tag and escape rooms.

Whichever course you choose, or if you decide to try each one, if you’re in Beaufort County, take time to celebrate National Miniature Golf Day with your family and friends.

This story was originally published May 14, 2022 5:00 AM.

The Beaufort County School Board is holding two community meetings this week to discuss the 2022-23 school year budget and it wants the community’s input.

The meetings, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday starting at 6 p.m., are being held to promote transparency, according to school board Chairman David Striebinger.

The first meeting Wednesday will be held in the cafeteria of Bluffton High School. On Thursday, the board will meet with community members at Beaufort High School.

The meetings will consist of a presentation on the budget, after which community members may break off into small groups to discuss the budget before handing off their feedback to the board.

“We hope community taxpayers, parents, and our educators will attend one of our budget forums so they can learn about next year’s budget and provide feedback to the board,” Striebinger said in a press release.

Topics that will be discussed include “instruction, administration, operations, and salaries,” according to the press release. At its regularly scheduled school board meeting last week, the board heard from educators in the community telling them that the cost of living in Beaufort County is too high and teachers need more money in order to afford to live where they teach.

A teacher at Robert Smalls International Academy who spoke out during a recent school board meeting said he and his wife have been living in the area for about a year and cannot find a house they can afford.

“Luckily, we are not in one of the apartments that raised their rent by 30%,” the teacher said. “When you can’t afford to live in a place, how am I able to invest in a community? ... I feel like a transplant that is waiting to be moved somewhere else.”

The board voted May 4 to give employees a $2,000 bonus that will be distributed in December. Full-time employees who remain working within the district by Nov. 15, 2022, will be eligible for the retention bonus. New full-time employees who remain working by that date will receive a $2,000 recruitment bonus. The one-time bonuses come from the district’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) fund and will total approximately $6 million.

Those who cannot attend the community meetings can give their input via BCSD Connected, an online platform where the community can leave feedback, suggestions and participate in surveys and polls.

The board aims to certify its budget for the upcoming school year by its next meeting May 17, officials said in the press release. The final reading of the budget will take place June 27.

This story was originally published May 10, 2022 10:16 AM.