For the moment, the towering construction cranes pivot over the sites of three future hotels, a mixed-use commercial and residential development and an apartment building.
Several factors are helping to drive the crane craze, Price said
“Look at the skyline. Where are they all located? North of Calhoun. What are they building? Highly dense products, such as hotels and apartments, that need cranes,” he said. “When the capital markets started to stall, everybody froze in 2008. Money started to flow again when Charleston started to look good for investments. Some of those projects are now coming together.”
The taller-building trend in downtown Charleston is another reason more cranes are cropping up. Josh Martin, a senior adviser to Mayor John Tecklenburg, said the city is entering a “mid-rise architecture” phase in the upper reaches of the business district.
“It’s much different than three- and four-story architecture on the lower peninsula,” Martin said. “Now we are getting into five- and eight-story-type structures. It’s not only the amount of construction, but the type of construction as well that requires cranes. It’s a sign of a very positive market.”
Several factors figure in to the use of the spindly lifting devices.
“It’s really a function of the project getting built,” said Matt Waddell, project manager with Alabama-based B.L. Harbert International, which is building the five-story, 139-room Homewood Suites hotel on a roughly one-acre lot at Meeting and Reid streets.
“If a project is on a tight site, you don’t have a lot of room or the means to move materials around on the ground,” Waddell said.
Construction cranes come in two basic types: tower and mobile.
The mobile variety are ideal for large, open-field job sites, such as a new school, because operators can move them where they are needed.
Tower cranes are fixed. They stay in one place. They lift and deliver heavy materials using long, high-strength suspended arms that rotate 360 degrees. They’re generally used in tight, urban settings. These are the kind of cranes now dotting the downtown Charleston skyscape.
“Tower cranes take up very little real estate,” Waddell said. “You build your structure around it. It gives you a lot of reach and strength.”
Some jobs require more than one. Waddell cited Courier Square, which is being developed at Columbus and Meeting streets by a partnership that includes the owner of The Post and Courier. The builder of the mixed-use development needed two tower cranes because of the scope of the project, which will rise up to eight stories in the interior section.
“The buildings are so tall, the cranes can reach the whole site,” Waddell said. “Tower cranes come in handy for all types of work. You typically see them in big cities.”
Cranes don’t come cheap. They can run $12,000 to $24,000 a month to rent, depending on the size and the lease period, though Waddell said some construction companies have their own.
With the building market red-hot right now, demand is feverish.
“There is not a lot of availability,” Waddell said. “In some instances, you have to put your order in a year ahead of time.”
Several other big downtown project developers have had to call cranes into service to help them with the heavy lifting:
The eight-story, Bennett Hospitality hotel rising at 404 King, next to Marion Square. The $101 million full-service lodging will have 185 rooms and underground parking,
The 10-story, 100-unit Woolfe Street Apartments at 24-28 Woolfe St., between King and Meeting.
The 54-room, five-story boutique hotel at 583 King St., just south of Spring Street.
Looking ahead, a big crane or two will be deployed to the mixed-use WestEdge site near the Medical University of South Carolina, where vertical construction is expected to begin this year.
Martin, the mayor’s senior adviser, called all the building activity and the use of cranes a sign of a healthy economy.
“Charleston is a hot market right now,” he said.
