FULL TRANSCRIPT of Checking up on progress in Charleston: A two-part interview with Mayor William S. Cogswell, Jr.

By Jay Williams, Jr. and Charles W. Waring III 

Note:  Below is the full transcript of our Dec. 12 interview and the email responses to the questions that we did not have time to ask.  

Q: Let’s start with addressing flooding, which remains a top priority for your administration. We recently signed an agreement with the Army Corps for the preconstruction, engineering and design (PED) phase of the Charleston Peninsula Project. You seem to support extending the Low Battery wall west and north along Lockwood to Brittlebank Park, and possibly further, correct?  

A: Yes.   

Q: However, that wouldn’t protect Charleston from a direct Category 4 or 5 storm, right? What are the benefits? 

A: Initially, the Army Corps was talking about a wall or a piece of hard infrastructure, and I was not in favor of that. But after about a year’s worth of discussions and negotiations with the Army Corps which included me going up to Washington on several occasions, meeting with head Army Corps working with them on a larger platform that deals with flooding all across the city, not just the peninsula, we were able to come to an agreement that has the alignment in a way that works, I think, for residents and, more importantly, a design that marries both form and function, not a T-wall or a piece of gray concrete, but taking something that’s served Charleston for 200 years, the Battery, and designing its promenade all the way around the peninsula. So, it would go in a western alignment from the current Coast Guard base out proud of Lockwood through the Marina, in front of the Rice Mill, up along Brittlebank Park and dead-ending at The Citadel. And on the Eastern alignment, it would go from the Mishroon House, along the waterfront, Waterfront Park and through Union Pier and ultimately through Columbus Terminal and dead-ending at Laurel Island.  

So it would certainly protect the city against storm surges. Nonetheless, Category 5 and all that, I mean it’s built to withstand hurricane-force conditions, but more importantly, it would also address tidal flooding and it would help significantly with our stormwater issues. You know, there’s two types of flooding:  one coming in from the outside and one coming in from the sky. Right? And by, for example, taking the Battery extension south of Lockwood, and building a knee wall, which we’re getting ready to start construction along Lockwood now, that creates another retention area like another Colonial Lake or another Long Lake, that would be off of Lockwood. And we have diagrams of all this, again, the most important thing is it would holistically address flooding on the peninsula for generations. And it would also provide an amenity for residents, not just for the peninsula, but for the region.  

Q: Do you liken that more to the High Battery or the Low Battery in terms of appearance?  

A: That is the exact design … the Battery. That’s what it would look like, that’s what it would feel like, and it would also, again, provide mobility, it would protect the roads — the Lockwood Drive, Morrison Drive that are constantly under water, so that would be eliminated. So it just solves an exorbitant amount of systemic problems that we have on the peninsula, and the federal government would pay two-thirds of the cost.             

Q: And if I were to round the curve at Broad and Lockwood, would I be able to see the water from there? 

A: You’d be able to see another lake … you would be able to see … it would be at the low water mark on Lockwood, and it would be approximately the same elevation as High Battery. So it wouldn’t be that wall that you’ve seen earlier images of; that’s what we were not in favor of …  we want to get something that marries form and function.  

Q: 40 percent of Charleston County streets are in poor or very poor condition. In 2021, the Pavement Condition Index (PCI) according to the County was 70 percent. It has now fallen to 63 percent. Maintaining these streets falls under Charleston County's responsibilities and largely depends on the Transportation Sales Tax … 

A: Actually, most of the streets fall on the state. The overwhelming majority of our streets in the region are state-owned roads. The county actually maintains a lot of them, as does the city in some conditions, and what’s happening now, and I think you’re getting to the Transportation Sales Tax and how that would be funded … Ah, yes, the Transportation Sales Tax is critical, not just for paving roads but for addressing traffic. It is our primary revenue source for doing that. Really, it’s our only significant revenue source for doing that. It’s been in existence since 2004. What is being proposed in 2026 is an extension of an existing tax that has been paid for the past 20-plus years. And approximately 50 percent of that tax is paid by people who don’t live here. So the alternative to not having a sales tax is either worse roads with worse traffic or higher taxes, property taxes. So in terms of what your best option is, the sales tax is in my opinion the best option. You also need the state to contribute more, and one of the things we’re working closely with the DOT on in the legislature is to change the way it rates or funds the various districts. The district of Charleston, District 6, is the lowest funded district in the state.  

Q: That is because …? 

A: That is because they have a formula, and the formula for road paving in particular is miles of roadways, right, it is condition of asphalt, and it’s population. So we’re very high on the population chart; Tri-County is, I assume, the largest population. When it comes to the amount of roads, we actually don’t have as many roads as the other districts — we have a lot of wetlands and water, right? So we just don’t have as many miles, but they actually require more maintenance because they get salt water covering them on a routine basis.                                        

The worst part of it, though, is the condition of the asphalt. Because we in Charleston County, in particular, have spent a lot of money repaving state roads with our sales tax dollars, that penalizes us because our condition is better than other districts. So, we need to change that formula, and what is going on at the state right now is a bit of an omnibus bill that’s being proposed, it will be up in this coming session, to modernize DOT. Will do a lot of changes in DOT, and there’s a big committee of legislators that have been formed and they’re touring the state now trying to come up with different ideas of what to put in this bill. The big thing that we’re pushing for, again, is to change that funding formula, so we’re not penalized for maintaining state roads. I think there’s an openness to that, for sure. 

Q: The county spends less than $10 million annually on the roads to pave them. And according to the PCI, if we’re actually going to increase the quality of the roads back to the previous 70-percent Pavement Condition Index, it would cost $27.5 million annually. 

So there’s a shortage of funds, right?                      

A: I’m not sure where PCI falls into this, PCI is … what is that entity? 

Q: It’s the Pavement Condition Index that the County of Charleston uses to assess the roads. 

A: That’s something you can talk to the county about. I kinda deal with it from the state level, working with the county. The city of Charleston has very limited funds for road paving because it’s not our purview, it’s not our responsibility … we don’t own …  

Q: Right, but what can you do to increase … get the county to increase its share of road funding? 

A: Well, again, we can lobby the state to change the conditions so we get more money from the state … that it wouldn’t be punitive for us to address some of these things, at least we would get credit for it in some form or fashion. Then again, I think we can help promote the Transportation Sales Tax because this is where we get money from. It would be extremely problematic if we do not have that revenue for the foreseeable future. 

Q: Can we get more money out of the Transportation Sales Tax than we’re getting now for roads? 

A: There’s a lot of money going into the roads, and there’s a big debate about how much would be Greenbelt funding, how much would be for capital projects which we have significant need for, and then certainly paving … bike/ped, improvements, and other mobility efforts. So I think it is well broken out on how it would be allocated, but to your point, I think if it’s just $10 million, I think with CHATS and other buckets, I can assure you there’s more than $10 million worth of paving going on across Charleston County in a given year. But I think we don’t want to get stuck on just one item. This is something we need to be very thoughtful about, and very transparent, too, with voters on. One of the things I think that is important for you all to know, and it would be great to convey to your readers, is that in the past iteration of the sales tax, it was very general and vague. The cities, and not just Charleston, Mt. Pleasant is committed to this … North Charleston, smaller municipalities, public service districts, and county officials, I believe, are committed to being very transparent and open with where the proposed spending that would go on this sales tax, so the people can make an informed decision. So what the city of Charleston has done during the past two months is we’ve had multiple public meetings where we’ve identified what are priorities are for this funding and where we go in the city of Charleston … and what our pro-rata share would be spent on. And it is, you know, 17 … it’s where everybody knows the traffic problems exist. It’s not a mystery. And we have solutions to them, we just need funding. And it’s different per areas, right? You take John’s Island, and it’s a focus on Main Road and Bohicket, and Maybank and the pitchfork getting off. You take the Peninsula, and it’s the focus on Lockwood, and it’s the focus on Morrison Drive. And yes, part of that is our contribution towards the partnership with the Army Corps that would be this Battery extension, which would, in aggregate, cost about $300 million in local funds, which would come from  

the sales tax. And if you take the peninsula of Charleston and its population of Charleston County, it would warrant about $500 million. It’s just population based, if you break it down. If there’s $4.25 billion coming in from the TST, the population of the city of Charleston, the Peninsula of Charleston specifically, its pro rata share of that is roughly $500 million.  

So what we proposed … I think y’all wrote something about this … is that we’re not writing $1 billion check for the battery extension, and it’s taking a huge portion of the TST … it’s actually taking a very small amount of it, leveraging it with significant federal dollars, in a way that I think is incredibly impactful not just for mobility but for livability and flooding. So we’ve been digging into this, it’s complicated, it’s nuanced, it requires some homework to be done. But if we can get this done, it will be transformative in a major, major way. It will address the systemic problem that we have, again, both with traffic and with flooding on the Peninsula. But then again, it will address these road conditions all over the city. So it's exciting; it really is. 

Q: The 300-room Bennett hotel at 411 Meeting St. is moving forward, and, of course, you have construction coming up on the Four Seasons hotel as well. Have we reached the tipping point for hotels, do you think? What are your thoughts on our becoming another New Orleans or Orlando in terms of hotels?          

A: Yeah, that’s a refrain you hear a lot of. I think it’s understood we have 8 million people who come and visit here, but if you do look at the actual statistics, the number of visitors has started to level off, and what people are spending has gone up significantly, so it’s a bit of a quality not quantity, which is not a great phrase to use; some people say that’s a … you know, we’re closing our doors, that Charlestons always been a welcoming place. I can tell you this in regard to hotels, particularly on the peninsula:  There have been no new entitlements for hotels on the peninsula since I’ve been in office, or really for years. The 411 [Meeting St.] that you mentioned was entitled, I think, 14 years ago. Same thing with the Four Seasons. These have long been a “by right vestage” that … there’s not much we can do except for try to condemn the property to prevent them from being built. Again, it was a decision made a long time ago. The accommodations overlay is very strict; it hasn’t moved, I don’t intend for it to move … there probably will be … The only new potential hotel will be, in all likelihood, on Union Pier. We will be on that 65 acres … In the Lowe plan, I think they were contemplating 600 or 700 rooms, but I’m pretty confident it will be lower than that. But that discussion hasn’t begun yet, and it will be going through a very public process … 

Q: But there are at least 20 entitlements out there for hotels … 

A:  We can get you the documents. Almost all of those weren’t done, well none of those were done… 

Q: I realize that, but some of them will come back on line at some point … 

A:  Well, some of them will be built, yeah. 

Q:  Right, so is that a concern? 

A:  Ah, I think if you compare the number of hotel rooms verses the number of residential units that will be built on the peninsula, it will be far more residences than hotel rooms, and that’s what we want. We want this to be a place for residents and a living city, not just for visitors. I know that’s confusing to a lot of people who have moved here, but you know the reality of it is that the peninsula is half the population it was 75 years ago — half! And so we have a lot of capacity here, and we want people who live here. And we’ve done a deep dive on the demographics, and we have a tourism management plan coming out; we’ve negotiated with Bloomberg and Associates, and it’s really fascinating with the opportunities that we have … 

Q:  When will that come out? 

A: It will be out probably in the next 90 days. We’ve done a deep dive on that, and we’ve done a deep dive on one thing that’s really fascinating, too, that I think is interesting in terms of our culture and character. Our area median income for the city of Charleston has doubled in the past 12 years. Doubled. That’s unheard of. The average worker is making double what they were 12 years ago. So with Bloomberg we did a deep dive on that because that seems just unbelievable to me. But what we found is that it is accurate. But it’s really the result of rich people moving here and displacing the people that can no longer afford to be here. So one of our major initiatives, besides just limiting the number of hotels to kind of what we have currently on the books, with the possible exception of Union Pier, is to really address livability on the Peninsula and bring people that have been pushed out, back. And one of the ways we’re doing that is an effort called Project 3500, where we will work with the housing Authority, who is the largest land owner on the Peninsula, and we’re going to tear down all the public housing on the peninsula and rebuild it with new housing that will be mixed income. So it wouldn’t displace any of the people that live there now, but actually provide more units, and also market-rate units that will allow people to live closer to where they work. Because the Peninsula is, without question, the largest employment center. 

Q: Right.                                                                 

A: And the further these people who work at [places like] MUSC get pushed out to the outer perimeters, the worse our traffic is. 

Q: Parking downtown is becoming more difficult. Vehicle registrations have increased by 40 percent since 2008, and many of the surface parking lots are being taken over by hotels and development, creating more traffic. Once again, residents must compete with visitors for parking spaces. What do you think the solution is? 

A:  I don’t think that’s accurate. I mean we have plenty of examples of parking decks that aren’t fully utilized. I’m not sure where you’re getting your statistics there, but I’m not telling you that parking is not a problem on the peninsula, it always has been. We’ve had one of our parking decks that’s been down on Wentworth Street for several years now. We worked out a deal with the College of Charleston; that was a complicated … where we owned the land, they owned the building, and on St. Philips we owned the building, they owned the land. The deal was done 30 years ago, so we’re swapping that and cleaning it up, so that it can be rebuilt and not just provide the parking that once was there, but will add some additional parking. We’re also opening up parking on Union Pier for workers because they’re having a hard time figuring out places and are often times parking in neighborhoods, so there’s no silver bullet on parking, I’ll tell you that. But but the parking decks we do have, which is interesting, well, sometimes they are full, no question about it, more often then not, there are vacancies in them. Between that and other creative ways, like with Union Pier. Then the last thing I will point out is the reinvesting in public transportation, which we believe in wholeheartedly, and the major funding source for that, again, is the Transportation Sales Tax, which would allow that funding for the Lowcountry Rapid Transit to go out all the way to the fairgrounds and down to MUSC. A lot’s happening, and we’re at a very pivotal time for this city and this region. I don’t think people appreciate just how pivotal it is with the opportunities we have from housing to flooding to transportation. To me, it’s exciting. The more people learn about it, and it’s a lot to take in, and I appreciate you all helping spread the word, there’s just incredible opportunity in our future, and I hope we can take advantage of it.                                                   

Q: So we have eight million tourists, and we have an area on the peninsula that only has 30,000 residents — that’s a big impact. We receive money from tourists now, but that’s small compared to our city budget. Some have suggested implementing a flat $10 nightly tax on hotel and short-term rental stays. That would require state approval to get that tax passed. Would you be in favor of that? 

A: You are talking about Steve Bailey’s deal … proposal? Look, we’re looking at ways to increase revenue. We just imposed a significantly higher business license fee tax on hotels that’s generating $2.3 million in additional revenue to the city. We do get a lot of money, net dollars to the city from the A tax (accomodations tax) and hospitality tax. So it’s not insignificant. 

Q:  How much do you get from that? 

A:  I can get you the budget; it’s online. And parking revenue, too, is pretty significant. Really, the property taxes that we get as a city of Charleston only pay for our police and fire, that’s it. The garbage pick up, the zoning administration, the filling of the potholes … police and fire, that’s it. Most of your property taxes, of course, go to the county. Fifty-percent of your property taxes go to the school district.  

Q:  Do you see a way of getting more money from tourists? 

A:  We are getting more money from tourists. I just explained one way we’re doing it. Am I in favor of looking at other ways?  Yeah. One of the ways we’re doing that, again, is higher … fewer tourists who pay more when they come here, and that generates net more revenue through a combination tax and sales tax that I think would far offset a $10 fee that we have to go to the state to get approval of, and let me tell you what I think their attitude will be — zero.  

Q:  We have a tourism management plan that’s being revised. When do you see a meeting … 

A:  The next 90 days. 

Q:  Once we get our recommendations from Bloomberg, what do you think will happen with those? 

A:  It will be a public process, it will go through the committee process, we’ll have public input, and Historic Charleston Foundation has been very involved with it, they helped initiate it, a lot of advocacy groups have been engaged throughout. I think it’s going to be very productive, from what I’ve seen in the initial drafts. We’re doing things too, like working with — and I can’t get into the details — but some very impressive national museum-type exhibitors that are very interested in Charleston. Again, just some interesting and exciting things that could be our next chapter. It’s good to be loved. Charleston has an incredible reputation nationally and internationally, and I know that brings more people here, more people move here as a result, and a lot of people wanna pull up the ladder once they’re here, but I do think Charleston in its 300-year history has evolved in a pretty incredible way and has proved to be incredibly resilient and we are who we are as a result of that commitment to this place making sure that we have character that is, again, unique. So when I see things like people living here for generations getting pushed further and further out, that’s concerning to me, and we wanna figure out how to address that. And when it comes to visitors coming here, I think we have always been a welcoming place, but they do need to pay their fair share and contribute back. And I think what we’re seeing trends of are people willing to do that. I know people wanna shut it off completely; that’s not gonna happen, but ah, you know I think we can work in constructive ways to balance it.  

Q: When do you expect detailed plans to emerge for Union Pier? [Editor:  A $36 million lawsuit regarding the S.C. State Ports Authority and Norfolk Southern was settled just days before we went to press, so that matter is no longer holding back the Union Pier planning.] 

A: They’re in no rush, I think it’s 2027 is when their anticipated date, but I don’t know the details on it. We’ve had a very good working relationship to date with Beemok, with the port, and what they’re looking at doing there is pretty incredible, and the public space that would be there that they’ve committed to, is I think, going to be something like hasn’t been seen on the East Coast or really this country. And it can also double help with flooding, as that whole area is a basin for the drainage on the eastern half of the peninsula. And so they’re taking a holistic approach, and we’re taking a holistic approach. It’s a little bit of trust but verify, but they’ve done everything that they said they were going to do and more. 

Q: We appreciate it. 

A:  A lot of good stuff happening here. 

Q: And I think there’s more that can happen, like Francis Marion at Marion Square …                                                     

Mayor Cogswell responded to other questions by email; they are as follows: 

Q: Any chance we might expand the Charleston Police Department’s equestrian squad as a method of force projection and a proven solution to any potential riots?  

A: Yes, the Charleston Police Department reintroduced mounted patrols after a long absence, and we are committed to seeing that program grow.  

Mounted units are a well-established tool that support visibility, crowd management and community engagement. It will be an evolution since our current facilities are limited, and we are rebuilding our stable (pun intended…) of experienced riders.   

Q: You might have heard criticism about the name “holiday parade.” If we have the most appropriate lighting of the menorah in Marion Square, how about a return to having a Christmas parade?  

A: Charleston’s parade is meant to bring the community together during the season. We have several events relating to specific religions and traditions (ex. The lighting of the menorah as well as two Christmas tree lightings), but the parade itself is meant to bring all people that call Charleston home together.  

Q:  The year 2026 is going to be full of patriotic expressions. Two ideas:  Might the office of the mayor task the Huguenot Society, Society of the Cincinnati, Sons of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution and the WLI to form a committee and meet and find a way to offer a plan for an equestrian statue of the man for whom Marion Square is named?   

Second idea: Why don’t we paint the fire hydrants to look like patriot soldiers, just as we did in 1976 for the bicentennial? 

A: We’re looking forward to 2026 and the many ways it will highlight our country’s founding as well as South Carolina and Charleston’s often overshadowed but critically important role. General Marion is a national hero for his role in the Revolution, and I am certainly supportive of properly honoring his legacy in an appropriate way. As for the fire hydrants, I remember them well and love the idea of bringing soldier design back as one of the many ways to help celebrate this special year.    

Q: We’ve discussed several issues and priorities, but are there any priorities we missed that you’d like to add? 

A: Traffic, flooding and housing are critical to our short- and long-term future, and it is going to take a real collective effort to turn these important initiatives into realities.  There has and continues to be a lot of bad or incomplete information out there, so a large part of this coming year will be to engage with the community to ensure their perspectives are heard and incorporated.  We are at a pivotal time, and we need to come together as one in order to take advantage of some of the unique opportunities we have in front of us.  It is going to take some communication, some coordination, and yes, some compromise, but I am confident we can address these issues head on that will positively impact our city for generations to come.