Bigdaddy 30,
Excellent question, I am going to try to answer it as best as I can given the information I have and what has been said to me over the past 18 months.
The design which you see on the web site right now is a small mall like facility which would house several speciality shops, little cafe' style coffee shops and food vendors. The main circular structure, the visitors center, and the Tamarack style building should have approx. 100,000 to 130,000 square feet of rentable space. This is from looking at it with an eye for space, I would need a survey to give me an accurate square footage.
Take the amount of square footage and figure it at about 30.00 to 32.00 a square foot, that equates to about 40 million a year, give or take a few dollars. Now, I'm not calculating in the Hotel, Parking or the Marina dollars that would also be generated nor what special events might bring in.
As for the amount of people it would employ, I have been told by very reputable people who run many properties in our city that I am looking at 1,200 jobs for the smaller design which is parked on the web site. THAT'S A LOT OF JOBS!!
How this would effect the revenue levels in our City, that is a very broad question because many things would stand to be affected all the way from Tax revenue to Parking meter revenue. I think that what we are looking at is a "trickle down affect", revenue from several diffrent sources and the added taxes from employing people in the city limits.
I think we need to also consider what growth we would see outside of the Waterfront itself, with a more modernized appearance and a desire to grow that we can attract in new business to our city which would create more jobs.
I will be very upfront with you Sir, I came into this Waterfront work with very little knowledge about politics and finance. I have an Engineering and Construction background. This puts me at the far end of the spectrum when it comes to being able to deal with all of the facets involved in this project. Make no mistake, it has been and still is a learning lesson for me and I am definatly in a learning curve.
I have willingly taken this on because I believe in it so strongly and because it does'nt seem that anyone else will, I just want to get to what I consider the fun part - BUILDING IT!!!!
I feel that this is the next evolutionary step for Charleston, only 20 years late.
Sorry that it took me so long to respond to your thread, computer problems on my end have been a big problem for several days. I will try to be more timely in the future, I'm a one woman show and it takes up much of my life to deal with each and every thing that comes along. Thanks Again!!