Noisette Company completes key land transfer at former Charleston Naval Base

North Charleston, SC (October 20, 2005) – The Noisette Company, LLC announced today that approximately 42 acres on the former Charleston Naval Base have been transferred from the City of North Charleston to the Company. The tract represents three parcels, part of an overall land transfer from the Charleston Naval Complex Redevelopment Authority to the City of North Charleston. The parcels – which are slated for redevelopment within the 340-acre Navy Yard at Noisette – are crucial to revitalization of the former base, and serve as part of one of the nation’s largest sustainable urban redevelopment projects. The transfer included parcels north of Noisette Creek, and the parking lot adjacent to the historic Powerhouse building.

Completion of the land transfer will allow for final engineering, design and infrastructure to start for Phase One of The Navy Yard, as the Company now has assembled nearly 300 acres for redevelopment. Phase One entails the construction of 2100 housing units and 1.7 million square feet of retail and commercial space. In addition, this allows for the beginning of the Powerhouse Basin and Arts District projects for The Navy Yard. Construction on these projects will be preceded by a design and engineering phase. The planned development zoning and development agreement for the Navy Yard have been approved by the City, which is at the heart of plans for the creation of a new urban center.

In the past, the entries on the former base remained in Navy ownership, which hampered the process of building. “Access has been a challenge to us since the land transfer process began,” injects John L. Knott, Jr., CEO and President of the Noisette Company. “Now planning for infrastructure improvements and new construction can move forward.” Knott added that the already-approved Tax Increment Financing District can now be activated as a means of funding infrastructure improvements on the old base.

All tracts on the former base formerly held by the Redevelopment Authority and slated for redevelopment by Noisette have now been transferred to the City.

The Noisette Company, LLC is a private, sustainable community developer working with the City of North Charleston in a collaboration driven by community participation. The Noisette Project not only encompasses areas of the former base, but includes traditional neighborhoods encircling the former base, like Park Circle, designed by William B. Marquis, a Harvard-educated landscape architect, around 1913. The overall Noisette Project includes 2,660 acres that are slated for urban renewal by the City of North Charleston, and is expected to generate $2 billion in aggregate public-private investment over the next two decades. The Noisette Company will redevelop approximately 340 acres on the former base.

In July 2005, the Noisette Community Master Plan was recognized by the American Society of Landscape Architects with that organization’s prestigious Award of Excellence.