Food Lion closure provides county unexpected options | Business | Berkeley Independent

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Food Lion closure provides county unexpected options

Published Tuesday, January 31, 2012 10:09 AM

By Dan Brown
Berkeley Independent

Photo by: Frank Johnson/Independent

Shoppers enter Food Lion on Jan. 25 to take advantage of slashed prices.

Photo by: Frank Johnson/Independent

Kimberly Johnson of Bonneau (left) and Sandy Parker of Moncks Corner (right) were two of hundreds of shoppers last week taking advantage of Food Lion’s going out of business sale. “We’re two cousins shopping,” Johnson said with a laugh.

The recent announcement by Food Lion that it would be closing its store located on Highway 52 adjacent to the Berkeley County Government building has provided the county with several unexpected options.

The store is one of several Food Lions set for closure in the Lowcountry.

With several of its county services offices scattered throughout Goose Creek, Moncks Corner and St. Stephen, the pending availability of a building the size of the Food Lion supermarket offers county government several options in regard to centralizing many of its human services offices.

Originally, the county had purchased the 16-acre tract that used to be the fairgrounds property adjacent to Central Value Hardware for $1.2 million to house its Health and Human Services campus to include the county’s Head Start program.

But since this purchase last year the county found a home for its Head Start programs in the county schools, which in turn freed up space in St. Stephen for the new library to be relocated in the former Head Start facility. That also freed up space in the 16-acre tract of property that could free the county to sell off a portion of the tract.

“It had always been in our plan to try and sell off some of that property that we won’t need,” said Berkeley County Supervisor Dan Davis at last week’s county council meeting. “Currently our engineers are drafting plans for other health and human services programs that could be relocated here.”

Davis said the sudden availability of the Food Lion building presents an opportunity to centralize a lot of county offices.

“We have obviously included the Food Lion building as part of our overall long range plans,” Davis told council. “We obviously can’t plan for this kind of sudden change, but yes, we’re taking it into consideration.”

County attorney Nicole Ewing told council that while the county may own the land the building sits on, it does not own the building.

“Food Lion will pay rent through the end of their lease obligation which is 2013,” she said.

Davis added he expects to hear from Food Lion once the store closes its doors for good.

“I expect Food Lion will make an offer to us to buy that lease out once they are in a position where they are no longer bringing in income, and then we’d be in a position to remodel the building and get some of our folks out of those rented buildings and into this facility,” he said.

Offices like the Emergency Preparedness Division currently housed in the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office building would be prime candidates to relocate.

With their store scheduled to close soon, store hours have been changed from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Last week saw hundreds of local shoppers taking advantage of slashed prices at the store.

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