Homes for Sale in The Summit neighborhood in Summerville, SC

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - Governor Henry McMaster and other state leaders hosted the inaugural South Carolina Governor’s Economic Summit on Monday, featuring many business leaders and companies from across the state.

The summit offered many sessions, panel discussions and presentations, including the unveiling of the new agency brand under the South Carolina Department of Commerce which is called “Launch to Legacy Brand.”

The purpose of the brand is to include qualitative and quantitative research with more than 500 in-state domestic and international stakeholders to understand current perceptions of the state and what it means to do business in South Carolina.

They also hope to identify selling points that differentiate South Carolina from its competitors across the Southeast and the nation.

Secretary of Commerce Harry Lightsey III spoke about being prepared for the future of economic development.

“It’s all about the future,” Lightsey said. “What we’re going through in terms of the automobile industry and the changes representing by scout motors here is just the beginning of what kind of change is gonna speak through every business sector and this is all about preparing our state to be apart of that change, to embrace that change, and to capitalize on the opportunities as they present themselves and we’ve been very deliberate in how we’ve gone about this rebranding process.”

One of the most notable featured businesses was Scout Motors.

The keynote speaker at the summit was Scout Motors President and CEO Scott Keough, who highlighted his company’s electric automotive plant coming to Blythewood in 2025.

The plant is looking to add over 4,000 jobs to the area, and Keough spoke on his confidence in having the plant thrive in Blythewood due to infrastructure and training.

“First and foremost… the land was available, the state was 100% ready for infrastructure,” Keough said. “In our business, you need the railheads, you need the energy to go make it happen. It’s a lot of states that have land and not a lot of states don’t have the infrastructure ready to go. Blythewood is a perfect mix. You throw in the livability of the state, you throw in the likability of the state, you throw in the closeness of a major university in Columbia and it works perfectly.”

Governor Henry McMaster spoke briefly on the state of economic growth and job availability in South Carolina at the summit. He said more work is available with more accessible training available in Palmetto State.

“We have plenty of people that can do the work, but we have to show it to them, we can’t tell them about it,” McMaster said. “That’s one of the reasons why we’re so excited about Scout. Scout is going to excite a lot of people. People are gonna want to get off the sofa and get to work.”

Scott Keough with Scout Motors confirmed today the Blythewood plant expects to hire 600 people by the end of 2025.

Notice a spelling or grammar error in this article? Click or tap here to report it. Please include the article's headline.

Stay up to date with WIS News 10. Get the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Storeand Stream us on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire, or Apple TV.

Copyright 2024 WIS. All rights reserved.

NEWBERRY — The City of Newberry played host to the South Carolina Bike Walk Trails Summit, at the Firehouse Conference Center, to share best practices and how to further develop the community to be more accessible, safer and more livable, often through sidewalks and bike lanes.

Amy Johnson-Ely, with Palmetto Cycling Coalition, said they parented with the S.C. Trails Coalition to bring great models of trails from across South Carolina that are making wonderful street safety initiatives. Those in attendance to learn more included engineers, city planners, community advocates and tourism officials, among others.

“They are trying to bring more livability to their community,” she said. “In fact, we have a Dillon County high school band teacher who is trying to start a club for youth with the goal of creating a mentor program for youth, but with bikes.”

The summit was held in downtown Newberry, in part, due to the local downtown area that Johnson-Ely said allows people to congregate and do exactly what they are talking about doing, connecting.

“You are not a community if you are not connected,” she said.

During the summit, the participants were given a walking tour around the City of Newberry to what is being done well and what can be improved upon regarding accessibility, safety and livability.

Johnson-Ely said that their tour showed a great block system in place.

“That is what we are finding, there is a lot of equity built into a great block system. Cars are going to slow down naturally and you are going to have a lot of predictability; at the end of the block, you can turn right or you can turn left, most often you are not going to go around a blind curve,” she said. “In environments like this, a lot of predictability and slower speeds, it is safer. We did find a couple of little things that often go over looked, sidewalks might not be part of a complete network.”

Johnston-Ely also said they noticed that next to Nance Street, there was hardly a buffer.

“Nance Street has a five-foot sidewalk with no buffer, it is right next to 35 mph traffic, it is not very safe or comfortable. However, there are wonderful opportunities in Newberry where you can build on this really great platform,” she said.

Something Johnston-Ely said was suggested was curb extensions at Main and Nance. She also said that in her opinion, Newberry and other communities across the state could shorten crossing distances for pedestrians, making them safer.

“Also makes it so cars have a very specific area to go,” she said.

In order to achieve some of the potential changes, Johnston-Ely said the S.C. Department of Transportation will not do anything unless there is a partnership with the local community.

“That is a wonderful opportunity, getting involved and if you want to engage your community, build these types of things, show up and be present to make the story of your community,” she said.

Reach Andrew Wigger @ 803-768-3122 or on Twitter @TheNBOnews.

Furman University President Elizabeth Davis, right, joins Robert Engelhorn, president and CEO of BMW Manufacturing, and Halsey Cook, president and CEO of Milliken & Company, in a CEO panel discussion moderated by Ethel Bunch of Sustain SC during the Sustainability in Business Summit at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville on Friday, June 9, 2023.

Last updated June 9, 2023

By Furman News

The message at the Sustainability in Business summit on Friday, June 9, was clear: South Carolina is at the intersection of commerce and conservation – and The Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities at Furman University is driving the sustainability conversation.

The summit, presented by The Shi Institute in partnership with Piedmont Natural Gas, was hosted in Bon Secours Wellness Arena by the BMW Charity Pro-Am and Sustain SC.

Andrew Predmore, executive director of The Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities at Furman University, opens the Sustainability in Business Summit at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville on Friday, June 9, 2023.

Seated around one of 35 tables in the arena was a group of Furman Student Sustainability Fellows, who were there to listen to speakers and panelists such Furman University President Elizabeth Davis and Andrew Predmore, executive director of The Shi Institute.

Dozens of representatives from leading South Carolina corporations such as Milliken & Company, BMW Manufacturing and Michelin also attended. Several of them were Sustainability Leadership Initiative (SLI) Fellows, graduates of a program led by The Shi Institute and Sustain SC.

“This kind of event is important because we are not going to make any progress on these big systemic issues without some thoughtful convening,” said Predmore, who described sustainability as “a human challenge” and said: “Regardless of how the discussions go, what happens here are connections that otherwise wouldn’t happen because these challenges are so big and diverse.”

Beyond learning directly from industry experts about the latest in sustainability efforts, such as supply chain management and carbon footprint reduction, there was an overall lesson that Predmore hoped the Shi Sustainability Fellows would take from the event.

“In South Carolina, there is movement on these things,” he said. “Furman students don’t have to go to California or D.C. or Denver to make a difference.”

In fact, as the audience heard from Davis, Furman students, faculty and staff are already making a difference without even leaving campus.

The university maintains a Gold rating in the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) since 2015, said Davis. Furman is rated third among baccalaureate institutions by AASHE, and it is the only Top 10 school in the Southeast.

For Davis, this shows that sustainability is not just an academic subject at Furman.

“That’s an accountability measure, to be sure,” said Davis, who was part of a panel that also included the CEOs of BMW Manufacturing and Milliken & Company. “We’re living up to what we’re actually teaching our students.”

In addition to the school’s many sustainability initiatives, Davis also stressed the importance of education, noting Furman’s Bachelor of Science degree in sustainability sciences – the first such degree offered by a liberal arts and sciences institution in the U.S.

The university has also included a course addressing humans and the natural environment in its general education requirements for all students, said Davis. About 30% of the courses in Furman’s course catalog address sustainability in some way, she added.

“Sustainability thinking really encompasses every part of any organization,” Davis said.

Education is the key to making that thinking take hold, she told the audience, whether it’s participating in SLI, asking faculty to share their expertise, or inviting more Student Sustainability Fellows into an organization to hone their professional skills.

“There are a lot of employees who want to do good work; they just don’t know how to do it,” Davis said. “The greatest opportunity is to begin spreading the understanding of what it means to engage in sustainable practices.”

“There’s a lot of work to do, and there’s a lot at stake,” Predmore told the audience. “But the good news is that we’ve got a lot of solutions, abilities, organizations and technologies here, and the future is in our hands to make the changes that we need.”

RICHLAND COUNTY, S.C. (WIS) - A Richland County neighborhood is getting significant upgrades on two main roads.

The upgrades will be done from the intersection of Hardscrabble Road to Summit Ridge Drive and Summit Ridge Drive from Summit Parkway to the entrance of Lake Carolina.

Work began about a month ago which included gutter and curb repairs, base repair and asphalt resurfacing.

Potholes, loose stone, debris, and slower speed limits in this construction zone in The Summit have raised concerns among those who live here.

James Kirk who has been a resident in the Summit for 15 years, has never seen the road conditions in his neighborhood like this before. Halfway through improvements to Summit Parkway, Kirk says work has stopped.

“It just seems like people are saying ‘Ok we’re just gonna leave it as it is right now and y’all just deal with it until we decide to come back,’ and this is terrible,” Kirk said. “In Richland County, we pay pretty much high taxes and they’re supposed to pay for the roads. We’re paying for taxes here and taxes there and there’s always a road tax and yet the roads are terrible.”

Residents like Tommy Williams are concerned over the lack of updates on the project.

“I think residents understand they’ll be a certain degree of discomfort with resurfacing of the roads which is not that big of an issue but when you stop the work on it with no explanation coming from anyone, that’s kinda sorta a slap in the face,” Williams said.

Richland County Councilman Overture Walker refutes the claims of a lack of communication. He tells WIS the public was notified of this project in September and nothing has changed.

According to a spokesperson for Richland County, the project is currently running on schedule and is expected to be finished by the end of November.

For information on how to report a claim, residents may contact Richland County’s Office of Risk Management for assistance.

Notice a spelling or grammar error in this article? Click or tap here to report it. Please include the article's headline.

Stay up to date with WIS News 10. Get the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Storeand Stream us on Roku, YouTube, Amazon Fire, or Apple TV.

Copyright 2023 WIS. All rights reserved.

Dominion Energy’s South Carolina customers almost had rolling power blackouts in South Carolina over Christmas 2022, utility officials said at an energy summit held by Gov. Henry McMaster on Friday. The governor announced the creation of a task force to ensure the state’s ongoing and future energy needs are met.

High demand from cold weather and diminished production from the state’s solar power facilities combined to nearly cause rolling blackouts over Christmas, Keller Kissam, president of Dominion Energy South Carolina, said while participating in a panel at the summit. Two other South Carolina utilities, Santee Cooper and Duke Energy, did have blackouts last December.

Kissam was joined on the panel by Mike Callahan, president of Duke Energy South Carolina; Jimmy Staton, president and CEO of Santee Cooper and Rob Hochstetler, CEO of the Central Electric Power Cooperative.

The summit, held at the University of South Carolina Alumni Center, was focused on how the state’s energy needs can be met as its population and economy continue to grow, a release from the governor’s office said.

McMaster said in a press conference after the summit that while the state’s energy demand has not reached its production capacity, the near blackouts over Christmas were an indication that the state is approaching that point.

“What that means is we must have our power, we must be diversified and we need to be sure that we have reliable power,” McMaster said.

McMaster said diversifying the power grid will help keep the lights on during potential natural disasters. Kissam compared South Carolina’s energy situation to the Texas blackouts in 2021, which caused hundreds of deaths.

“Thank goodness Governor McMaster has assembled this team together before somebody in South Carolina perishes as a result of us not having an energy policy,” Kissam said.

The governor announced at the press conference he had signed an executive order, effective Friday, that would establish the PowerSC task force to work between various state agencies and energy stakeholders to develop strategies for energy growth in the state.

“South Carolina has enjoyed unprecedented economic success and population growth in recent years, and with that success comes a need for greater energy generation,” McMaster said. “By establishing PowerSC, we ensure that South Carolina can meet these increased energy demands while also keeping energy costs low for consumers and ratepayers.”

The task force will be a partnership between the governor’s office, the state’s Department of Health and Environmental Control or its successor, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Labor, among others, McMaster said.

McMaster, as well as panelists at the summit, talked about the state’s need to move towards renewable energy in order to meet federal regulations.

The state’s coal plants will not be economical to operate under current and future federal policies, Kissam said.

“You’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the current regulation and you’re not getting the first electron out of it,” he said.

The governor also said the state needs to prioritize energy independence, mentioning the U.S. oil embargo of 1973.

“We want to travel towards clean energy,” McMaster said. “The question is how do we get there and how do we get there without slowing down?”

McMaster said South Carolina has been one of the nation’s earliest adopters of nuclear power, but nuclear plants take a long time to build. He said the state has a lot of interest in nuclear power and natural gas, as well as in solar and wind power.

Panelists at the summit also mentioned looking forward to hydrogen power and carbon capture technology.

As of 2021, 54% of the state’s electricity was produced by nuclear power, ranking third in the nation for nuclear generating capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Natural gas accounted for 24%, coal for 15%, and renewable energy such as solar and hydroelectricity was 7%. The state had an electricity surplus of 12% in 2021, according to the agency.

This story was originally published June 10, 2023, 5:30 AM.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to report Santee Cooper and Duke Energy said they had blackouts during December 2022 because of severe cold weather.

Corrected Jun 12, 2023