Dorchester County breaks ground on new business park

DORCHESTER COUNTY, S.C. (WCSC) - Dorchester County on Wednesday is breaking ground on a new 1,300-acre industrial park in Saint George.

The project, about 15 years in the making, is named “Port 95 Business Park” to emphasize its location near the I-95, a main distribution route taken by imports arriving in the Port of Charleston.

The Port 95 Business Park will cost $100 million and is set to have three spec buildings, which means developers aren’t building it specifically for a client but to lease.

Dorchester County’s Director of Economic Development, John Truluck, says one of the three buildings is very large sitting at almost one million square feet. This will be the largest spec building ever built in Dorchester County.

Truluck says there is a shortage of products in the county, so building this business park will help them meet their goal of bringing new companies to the area and local jobs. The county believes creating more jobs where people don’t have to commute should help with the congestion problem on I-26.

“It’s great to have conceptual drawings on paper, but it’s a whole nother thing to see the site cleared, see the construction equipment moving. Then the next phase of that is to see the buildings go vertical, so that’s always exciting to me because then you can say it’s not an idea anymore it’s a reality,” Truluck says.

The county is excited to move forward with this project letting companies know they have products coming and letting the community know jobs are on the way.

Site construction is on the way and the Port 95 Business Park is expected to be completed in 2024.

The groundbreaking ceremony begins at 2 p.m. at 4826 Highway 78 in Saint George.

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