New police/fire training facility planned for West Ashley Circle

WEST ASHLEY, S.C. (WCBD) – A change in plans at West Ashley Circle will bring a proposed public safety facility to the area instead of new apartments.

“There were about 300, over 300 apartments that were going to go in this location right off of Bees Ferry. And the mayor stepped in and said, ‘we don’t want to have more people and more apartments where infrastructure is already lagging,” said Deja Knight McMillan, the Director of Communications for the City of Charleston.

On Tuesday, City Council approved the first reading of a purchase agreement for 16 acres and $14 million worth of property around the circle, according to officials.

McMillan said the plan is to construct a police and fire training facility.

“One, it’s going to give them a state-of-the-art facility to train in and then two, it will also have more of a public safety presence in West Ashley which is very important for our largest borough of the city,” McMillan shared.

Charleston City Councilman Kevin Shealy represents that part of West Ashley which he said experiences flooding and traffic issues.

“Really the last thing we need is to have more cars on Glenn McConnell. Anything we can do to stop or slow down the number of apartments and the number of cars that are on Glenn McConnell Parkway, the better off we are for the people in that area of Charleston,” Councilman Shealy said.

Its also a part of town Shealy said could use more work opportunities. Having the new training facility would give the police and fire departments another option outside of their location on the upper neck of the Charleston Peninsula.

“If we can have people going to work, that are going to work in the West Ashley area that are not going to add to that traffic, where they would have been normally driving into downtown or maybe into the upper neck area and using that Glenn McConnell Parkway,” Shealy said. “If we can take those people off of that road, and allow them to work where they live, its certainly going to help with congestion.”

The purchase agreement will come back to city council for full approval, before the design phase begins.