Bucksport wades into growth debate

The warm air along the Waccamaw River is still and quiet for a spring afternoon in Bucksport, but at Phillips Square convenience store there is a slow constant hum of residents.

The store is the last business that remains open on Bucksport Road, a long stretch of asphalt alternating with empty buildings, boarded up businesses and small family-owned homes - but that might soon change if a marine business park takes shape in this small, rural Horry County community.

"The people in this community are tight knit. They know each other and they help each other when they can," said store owner Geneva Phillips. "Anything that brings a paycheck will help. You pray for them. Times aren't easy for anyone right now."

The Bucksport community has lived through several economic reincarnations in the past century and a half, and economic development officials are hoping the next few years could bring another. A planned 150-acre marine industrial park announced in March and a proposed four-lane toll road ending at the doorstep of the mostly rural area could bring needed changes to the small community as well as some unwanted consequences. Neighbors are excited about the prospect of jobs being brought close to their homes, but also nervous about the possibility of development and increased traffic changing the make up and character of a community that is full of lifetime residents who still walk to the local convenience store for groceries.

Falling on hard times

Bucksport sits off U.S. 701 on the West and is bounded by the Waccamaw River and the Bucksport Marina on the East. The community developed around the marina access point where the lumber yard and lumber mill shipped wood for ships and other building projects along the Atlantic Coast. In the late 1800s, a shipbuilder also set up shop in Bucksport, but didn't stay long because of protests from New England builders who threatened to boycott the South's lumberyards.

Several older members of the community said they remember when almost everyone in Bucksport somehow worked at the mill or in stores supporting the mill in the small community. When the mill closed, some of the residents left for better economic opportunity in less rural parts of Horry County, and those that remained were forced to find work in nearby Conway, Myrtle Beach or Georgetown County.

"A lot of people found work at AVX, but they laid a whole bunch of people off in the past few years. There are a lot of people who work seasonally at the beach or are out of work in Bucksport," said Horry County Councilman James Frazier, who was born and still lives in the Bucksport.

The roughly 1,100-resident community has been struggling for jobs for several decades. The most recent U.S. Census data for Bucksport shows that in 2000, 14.7 percent of the community's work force was unemployed, compared with 4.6 percent in Horry County. In 1990, Census data showed similar issues with a 13.4 percent work force unemployment rate in Bucksport compared with 5.1 percent for the rest of the county. As the county's jobless rate has risen to about 16 percent in recent months, estimates for Bucksport's unemployment have risen as well, but statistics will not be available until the release of the 2010 Census results.

Nearly half of the people who come into Phillips Square ask Geneva Phillips or her husband, Harold Phillips, to cash their unemployment checks or use food stamps to pay for household necessities, she said.

"We hear about all of that, the people waiting for the beach season to start so they can get work, the people who have been laid off from their jobs. I'd say about 40 percent of the people who come in to the store are seeing some trouble right now," she said. "We're struggling, too. We had to let everyone but my husband and I go. We're making ends meet, but it's a struggle. The people in the community need this store, so my husband has made every effort to keep us open."

Prospective jobs

Several partners developing the plans for the Bucksport marine industrial park are banking on the enterprise bringing jobs specifically to Bucksport, but also to Horry County and surrounding counties.

The park has been in the works for more than three years. Economic development officials started working on the project when a small ship builder approached the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corp. looking for a property to settle on. That builder withdrew his interest when the economy started to falter, said Horry County Property Manager Jim Papadea, but the EDC and the county figured they had something special to work with.

"There really is very little property that has the kinds of assets that this park has in our region and even along the East Coast," Papadea said. "Even after the boat builder pulled away, I knew that we had something worth pursuing and we had something that was special. The more people I talk to in [marine related] business, the more they tell me that we do have something special here. To find this amount of land with this depth of water and where there isn't really a lot of wetlands, is rare. I think we're in reasonably good shape."

The plan for the park, which is a partnership between Santee Cooper, Grand Strand Water & Sewer, the EDC and the county, is to maintain the marina, but add a boat maintenance and repair operation and an industrial manufacturing portion to the site. Papadea said he has been talking to barge operators and other shipping businesses that have told him that the deep water and large available acreage are a benefit in shipping large heavy build items that may not be able to travel by truck or freight train because of their size - items such as wind turbines or mobile hospital units.

Between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs could come to the industrial park when it's fully developed in a decade or so, Papadea said. Most of those jobs will be in manufacturing, but there will also be plenty of skilled labor jobs in the maintenance and repair facility and a few service jobs at the marina, he said. Of those jobs, Papadea said many will be available to Bucksport residents.

"My No. 1 priority is to bring jobs to the county and absolutely the jobs will be available to the people in this community. The employment base will come from the Conway, Bucksport and Georgetown areas most likely," he said. "But, you can't think only in the short term. Maybe as the manufacturing businesses move in, people in the community would open stores and restaurants to support that work force. That's the long-term gradual change we're hoping to see."

Another potential plus for Bucksport is the Southern Evacuation Lifeline, a four lane highway that would connect residents of the South Strand to a quick evacuation route over the Intracoastal Waterway in case of an emergency. The preliminary preferred layout option for that road places the end point on U.S. 701 about a mile from Bucksport Road, which leads to the marina. The county has given a private engineering firm that has worked on the environmental impact study of the road the go ahead to seek private investors willing to fund the construction of the road in exchange for making it a toll road until those expenses are paid off.

Bucksport residents said the road would be nice because it would provide better access for the community to essential services like healthcare and jobs in other parts of the county. Papadea said the road would also be a bonus in selling the marina park to potential investors, but he said the plan does not hinge on its completion.

Reality of moving forward

Papadea said the marina will remain open during the construction and other phases planned at the park, and the county has found an operator for the restaurant at the marina, which could mean a few jobs. He said it may be two years before a business moves into the park and 10 to 15 years before it fills up.

Grand Strand Water & Sewer bought the property for the park in February for about $3.5 million. Santee Cooper will pay for the preliminary engineering of the park, and the county will likely pick up the tab to lay utility and roads. All of that work should take about a year once the county obtains all of the necessary permits from the Army Corps of Engineers and others. Papadea and the EDC board will continue to market the park to marine businesses.

EDC board Chairman Jimmy Yahnis said the group researched other marine parks on the East Coast including the park in Wanchese, N.C., which also leases space and is operated by a public entity. Bob Peele, the project director for the commerce department, said the park took about 10 years to fill after it was opened to business outside of commercial fishing. By 2003, the park was booming, bringing in about $67 million in annual direct impact and $31 million in indirect impact and employing nearly 400 people on the 50 acre site, Peele said.

"That number has dropped. In 2004 and 2005, we were pumping along. The downturn has really affected us, and we haven't done an economic analysis, but we're hoping to do one this fall. I think what we find out will be at the other end of the spectrum," he said. "We've been recruiting trying to bring businesses in, but it's been really tough because of the economy. Most folks are hesitant to make investments in a new business or in moving their business right now."

Despite the differences in landscape and the asset of deep water in Bucksport, the EDC may be facing similar difficulties in filling the space because of overall economic issues in the marine business sector. Fewer boats are being sold nationally, and the county saw a drop in real property taxes on boats over the past two years.

Papadea and Yahnis said the types of businesses, including the manufacturing leg, don't have to rely on only marine related activities, which may make it easier to find tenants. The maintenance facility could be a big draw for boat captains who would face a week or two off while their boats were being repaired.

"We're ideally located for that, because we're halfway between Florida and Maine. The captain always decides where he wants to have his boat worked on, and I can't think of a better place than down the road from the beach," Papadea said.

Community concerns

Bucksport residents said they would like to have the same confidence in the park and that they want to be part of that collaboration, but there are still a lot of questions. Many residents said the only thing they have been told about the plans came from what they read in the newspaper or saw on the television news.

"I think the community is excited about the jobs and the possibility of those coming into the community," said Harold Phillips, who also leads the Association for the Betterment of Bucksport.

"They want to alter our community quite a bit. Some alterations may be good, some may not be good. I think some conversation may need to happen with the community organizations before all of this starts to happen. I'm concerned about our community and the people in our community who have been here for some time. We're concerned about people coming in and growth and forgetting about the needs and concerns of people whose families have lived here their entire lives."

Phillips, who was on the SELL task force, has been relaying information about the potential road to residents, but he said he and other residents have concerns about the industrial park and want to make sure that the community is involved and informed as it moves forward. Phillips is trying to organize a meeting with the project developers next week so the community has a chance to ask questions.

Frazier, who has heard some of the residents' concerns, has hope for the positive things the park could bring to the community hit hard by economic changes.

The community has changed even in his lifetime, from a place with local businesses including six or seven local stores and local jobs, to a place where people depend on jobs outside the community to make a living, he said.

"As a council member and even if I'm not a council member, I want to stay involved in this park. I want to see it in my lifetime and I want to see the rejuvenation it could bring to this community," he said.

Frazier said one of the biggest things many community members have working in their favor in regards to the concern over new development is that many own their property so that if housing developments do come to the Bucksport area after the road or after the park is up and running, residents will not lose their homes unless they choose to sell their property.

"All my life except five and a half years ... I lived here.

"We love this community. I will fight to see that the character of the community remains the same," he said. "There are some changes that need to be made. We may see more people opening businesses and building houses, but all of the original families own their own land. This community and the people who have lived here and built it, they know how to survive."