AC Repair in West Ashley, SC

The annual migration of Purple Martins to South Carolina has begun once more.

The first of the beloved birds to visit South Carolina this year were spotted in the city of Hanahan on Feb. 1 by a Purple Martin enthusiast, according to a recent press release from the Purple Martin Conservation Association. Similar enthusiasts throughout the eastern and central United States help track and report the birds’ annual migration on behalf of the association.

“The first Purple Martin arrivals of the season are always an exciting event,” Joe Siegrist, president of the Purple Martin Conservation Association, said in the press release. “Tracking the migration is not only fun, it also provides us with valuable information that helps inform our research and strengthen our efforts to make sure we’re doing everything possible to sustain the population of these amazing birds.”

The Purple Martins in Hanahan — a city in Berkeley County, bordered on the west and south by North Charleston — are North America’s largest species of swallow. Purple Martins spend their winters in the rainforests of Brazil, then travel 7,000 miles north into the eastern U.S. and Canada.

Purple Martins might be best known in South Carolina for their stop every year at Bomb Island at Lake Murray.

Between early July and the end of August, thousands of the birds will appear every afternoon at sundown on the lake. The local phenomenon of the birds returning to the same island each year is still a bit of a mystery. However, the warm climate, the natural protection from predators the island provides and the large population of insects to eat, are all good reasons why the birds would be attracted to the spot, experts say.

Siegrist noted that the Purple Martins’ successful migration each year is in part due to the unwavering dedication of thousands of people who maintain multi-compartment nest ‘condos’ that help the birds survive. Once widespread in rural America, approximately a third of the Purple Martin population has disappeared over the last 50 years, according to the conservation association.

“The decline seems to be the combination of a few factors: nesting habitat loss, competing invasive species, decreasing prey availability, and climate change,” Siegrist said. “Over the majority of the Purple Martins’ range, they are unable to nest naturally any longer. Human-provided nest boxes are the only thing keeping the species alive east of the Rocky Mountains.”

To follow along with the Purple Martins’ migration and learn more about how you can help ensure the future of Purple Martins, visit www.purplemartin.org. People interested in learning more about how to attract and care for Purple Martins can receive a free booklet by contacting the Purple Martin Conservation Association by emailing info@purplemartin.org or calling 814-833-7656.

WEST ASHLEY, S.C. (WCBD) – The future of historic preservation in West Ashley is up for discussion.

The topic was addressed during the City of Charleston’s West Ashley Revitalization Commission, or WARC, meeting on Wednesday.

“There’s been a number of demolition requests in the West Ashley area. Some of which have gone before the Design Review Board for board review of the demolition, others that are not within board purview,” explained Robert Summerfield, Charleston’s Director of Planning, Preservation and Sustainability.

According to Summerfield, these recent requests sparked Wednesday’s discussion. He said buildings 50 years or older are protected in West Ashley if they are located within a commercial corridor. All others run the risk of being torn down unless they are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“There are buildings now that have reached an age that they are considered historic buildings and they are important to the fiber and the character of our neighborhoods,” said Charlie Smith.

Smith is a member of the WARC. He told News 2 he planned to propose a temporary, city-wide moratorium on the demolition of buildings 50+ years of age during the meeting. He wants to see permanent protections in place.

“Because if it takes another few years for those protections to be put in place then what are we going to lose between now and then?” questioned Smith.

Meanwhile, News 2 also spoke with Dr. Jay Wisner. He owns Peninsula Cosmetic & Family Dentistry on Savannah Highway, and the property adjacent to it. He’s been trying to get approval to tear down the neighboring home for years, but its age and location have protected it.

“It’s not safe, it’s been condemned by the fire marshal. It is a building that I’m afraid to walk into and I am not going to allow anybody to walk into it because I’ve been told, if there is an earthquake or any kind of seismic event, it would essentially be turned into a pile of bricks,” said Dr. Wisner.

Wisner said structural engineers told him the house was not able to be rehabbed unless it was demolished first. If given permission, he said he plans to salvage the brick and reconstruct the same building. Until then, it will remain unused.

WEST ASHLEY, S.C. (WCBD) – A West Ashley man is warning others about a scam after someone attempted to gain access to his bank account while pretending to protect the victim from a fraud attempt.

“I initially got a text message asking if I had made a change,” explained Jamey Mellis, CEO of Software Solutions and Designs.

Mellis said the message appeared to come from his bank, Wells Fargo, on Wednesday.

“I’m looking at the message and just 10, 12, 15 seconds later I get a phone call from someone who said they’re from Wells Fargo fraud alert,” he recalled.

The person on the other end asked if he was attempting to make multiple purchases.

“Wanted to know if I had made a charge at Walmart out of Atlanta- I told him no. He asked me if I was out of town, and I said no. He goes ‘OK how about a charge at a gas station in Atlanta?’ No.”

The man texted him a link to confirm he did not make the charges.

“So, when I clicked on it, up came the screen asking me to sign into Wells Fargo — and I looked at it and did not have the same address as the link did. Nor was it a Wells Fargo address,” he warned.

Mellis told the man he didn’t know if this was legit.

“He said well, look- look at the number I’m calling you from and I want you to pull out your card. Turn your card over and you’ll see it’s the same number that’s on the back of your card and sure enough it was the same telephone number,” Mellis explained.

Mellis just happened to be driving by his Wells Fargo branch in West Ashley. He went inside and talked to someone.

“She told me that they were getting inundated with these types of calls and that it was definitely fraud.”

Mellis owns Software Solutions and Designs, and he is a certified, trained computer security expert. He said caller ID info can be faked to look like a call came from a legitimate number.

“Usually when I get a call and somebody tells me they’re from wherever I usually will hang up and call him to confirm,” he said.

He went the minute that I login, they capture my username and password and then they could’ve gone straight into Wells Fargo log into my account and got access to every account I have and drained everything that I have. I think if the average person, if they would have looked at that they would’ve fallen for that.”

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Some residents of the Avondale Community are worried about how proposed safety improvements in West Ashley will cause problems for their neighborhood.

Officials with both the city of Charleston and Charleston County said the improvements will make the intersection safer, but some Avondale residents worry it will negatively impact their neighborhood.

A petition called “Stop the Avondale Avenue at Savannah Highway Realignment Project” currently has over 300 signatures and counting.

READ MORE: Petition: “Stop the Avondale Avenue at Savannah Highway Realignment Project”

The writers of the petition claim realigning Avondale Avenue and Nicholson Street on Savannah Highway will bring “profound” and “permanent” effects on the livability, culture and safety of the Avondale Neighborhood.

For some background, the Avondale Realignment is just one part of the Savannah Highway Capacity and Intersection Improvement Project, which aims to improve traffic flow and safety at several West Ashley intersections. The project’s website states the plan for the Avondale portion of the project includes realigning Avondale Avenue with Nicholson Street, which would require the demolition of the building that currently hosts DBs and Alpha Graphics.

The City of Charleston said it is currently working with property owners to secure right-of-way acquisition for the realignment,’ which essentially means the city is working to secure the property owner’s consent.

Avondale Resident Katherine Anderson said she thinks realigning Avondale Avenue with Nicholson Street will push more cars through area neighborhoods, increasing traffic. She said she is also concerned that the realignment would enable a new parking garage to be built where the DBs and Alpha Graphics building currently sits.

“I think that this project is really to get the commuters into town and out of town, and the residents that live here are not necessarily being thought of, in my opinion,” Anderson said.

The City of Charleston said a private property owner has expressed interest in building a garage once the intersection improvement is done, but that it is not a part of the county or city’s plan.

“The city appreciates the county’s efforts to make this part of Avondale safer, particularly in light of last week’s tragic collision, and is working with area property owners to help secure the needed right-of-ways,” The City of Charleston said in a statement.

Copyright 2023 WCSC. All rights reserved.

A chemical firm is shutting down a Moncks Corner plant that makes the raw material for products like water bottles and packaging, leaving 125 workers without a job.

DAK Americas LLC — a subsidiary of Monterrey, Mexico-based Alpek — will permanently close its plant along the Cooper River that producsd PET resin, a type of polyester that’s derived from petroleum.

Layoffs will begin on April 28 and will conclude by the end of the year when the plant shuts down, according to a statement from Ricky Lane, the Charlotte company’s director of public affairs, trade relations and corporate communications.

DAK Americas said it will be moving production from Bushy Park to another unidentified site. The Berkeley County plant, which was built in the early 1970s, had the capacity to make 170,000 pounds of the resin annually.

“This difficult decision was necessitated as we optimize our assets to remain competitive in the challenging global polyester markets,” Lane said in a letter to the S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce.

That letter stated that DAK Americas “will formally and permanently close production operations on March 1, 2023.”

Lane, in an email to The Post and Courier, said March 1 represents the beginning of the plant’s shutdown and that the process will take at least 60 days to complete.

“It may be helpful to understand that these production operations are not like a light switch and cannot just be turned on and off,” Lane said. “These are highly technical polymer processes that must be stopped in a very systematic manner that takes many days/weeks to accomplish. Only after the 60-day period and once the shutdown process is complete for employees in their area of work will the written notice of individual layoff dates be given.”

The company said the shutdown will save it about $20 million a year.

Parent company Alpek said in a written statement that it is “constantly exploring ways to create value through optimization of its installed capacity and strengthening its cost competitiveness.”

The company said it plans to grow “through more efficient utilization of its assets.”

The closure notice was filed with state officials a day before Jorge Young Cerecedo took over as CEO of Alpek. Cerecedo, who has been with the company for 32 years, also will remain president of Alpek’s polyester division, which accounts for two-thirds of the parent company’s revenues.

Alpek acquired the Moncks Corner plant in a 2001 deal with DuPont, which was exiting the polyester market. Alpek created its DAK Americas subsidiary to operate the South Carolina site and other factories.

The planned plant closure comes less than two years after DAK Americas cut 200 full-time jobs and 40 contract workers at the Cooper River site as it wound down its polyester staple fibers business. The company blamed the decision on a flood of cheap imports.

Alpek, which is publicly traded on the Mexican Stock Exchange, reported revenues of $10.6 billion in 2022 — an 37 percent increase from the previous year — and net income of $789 million. It has more than 7,000 employees at 35 plants in nine countries.

Note: This story was updated March 6 with additional comment from the company.

COLUMBIA — Volkswagen subsidiary Scout Motors will build a $2 billion electric vehicle manufacturing plant in the Columbia suburb of Blythewood, adding to South Carolina’s growing portfolio of businesses tied to next-generation cars.

Scout will employ 4,000 workers as part of the record-breaking deal for Richland County, which coming off a series of recent large economic-development deals including an $800 million solar panel manufacturing plant and a $490 million brewery from the maker of White Claw Hard Seltzer.

“This is the biggest development news for the Midlands since the capital was moved here in 1786,” S.C. Rep. Micah Caskey, R-West Columbia, tweeted.

Scout makes electric pickups and SUVs. The plant will produce 200,000 vehicles annually, according to a statement from the Gov. Henry McMaster’s office.

The plant will take up 1,100 acres of the 1,600-acre Blythewood Industrial Site off Interstate 77. Production is expected to begin by the end of 2026.

“The impact this will have on our local economy cannot be overstated: this is historic and transformative,” House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, D-Columbia, said in a statement.

Blythewood Mayor Bryan Franklin, whose town was the state’s fifth-fastest growing in the past decade, said Scout was bringing a “historic investment (that) will bring thousands of jobs, economic growth and opportunity to our local community.”

Scout vehicles have been on U.S. roads before. The International Harvester company, known mostly for trucks and tractors, made SUVs and pickups in the 1960s and ’70s with the Scout badge, a vehicle still treasured by some collectors of classic off-road sport-utilities. VW now owns the Scout brand and has been planning its revival with a U.S. plant.

The Volkswagen Group announced the re-launch of Scout as an all-electric vehicle line in May 2022, hoping to break into the growing electric truck and SUV market.

“After Volkswagen’s successful turnaround in the U.S., we are now taking the opportunity to further strengthen our position in one of the most significant growth markets for EVs. Electrification provides a historic opportunity to enter the highly attractive pick-up and R-SUV segment as a Group, underscoring our ambition to become a relevant player in the U.S. market,” Volkswagen AG CEO Herbert Diess said at the time.

The electric vehicle industry has been boosted nationwide by a number of federal tax credits and loan programs included in the Biden Administration’s climate bill signed in August 2022.

Included were $2 billion in grants to repurpose traditional auto plants into making electric vehicles and up to $20 billion more in loans to build new factories. And production tax credits for batteries and their components could offset more than a third of the cost of battery packs made in the United States.

South Carolina is becoming a leader in the nation’s EV industry, with its top vehicle manufacturers making the shift to the production of battery powered cars.

This is the fourth auto manufacturer to build electric vehicles in South Carolina, joining Mercedes, Volvo and Volvo subsidiary Polestar, all outside of Charleston, and BMW in Greer.

BMW last year announced it is investing $1.7 billion to make EVs and batteries in the Upstate and Volvo Cars in the Lowcountry has pledged to build only battery-powered cars by 2030. Mercedes-Benz will also build its new eSprinter, an all-electric cargo van, in North Charleston starting this year.

Those companies have lured dozens of suppliers and ancillary companies, including Japan-based battery maker Envision AESC, locating in Florence County, and Nevada’s Redwood Materials, which is building a $3.5 billion battery recycling plant in Berkeley County.

Longtime Lowcountry manufacturer Robert Bosch also announced a $260 million update to its Dorchester County plant to build electric motors. And Proterra Inc., which makes batteries for commercial trucks, buses and heavy equipment, opened a facility in Greer.

Richland County continues to chase at least one other electric vehicle related company. An unnamed maker of electric vehicle battery components, known only by a codename “Project Viper,” could open a $323 million manufacturing plant on 206 acres south of Columbia in the Pineview Industrial Park, where it is expected to employ 310 people, according to county documents.

“This proposed (Scout) manufacturing facility marks a major milestone in the history of Richland County and the potential for our most significant economic development project to date,” Richland County Council Chairman Overture Walker said in a statement. “This decision represents a transformational breakthrough that would position us at the forefront of the clean energy future.”

McMaster has made it a priority to attract electric vehicle and EV parts manufacturers to the state, launching a website scpowersev.com highlighting the industry potential in the state.

“Scout Motors will provide thousands of South Carolinians with previously unimagined opportunities and prosperity for generations to come,” the governor said in a statement.

Mike Fitts contributed from Columbia and and David Wren contributed from Charleston.