Santee Cooper sale could add hurdle to Volvo's office construction in Berkeley County
David Wren — The Post and Courier
The proposed sale of state-owned utility Santee Cooper could complicate plans to build an office complex at the Volvo Cars manufacturing campus in Berkeley County.
Santee Cooper owns the property off Interstate 26 near Ridgeville where Volvo wants to build an 88,000-square-foot office building as part of an expansion the Swedish automaker announced last month.
South Carolina officials plan to finance $46 million in general obligation bonds to help pay for infrastructure at the site, including a new road.
But if Santee Cooper is sold, as Gov. Henry McMaster has recommended, those bonds would require the property to be carved out of any portfolio offered to a purchaser.
"Because we would put a general obligation bond-funded improvement on a piece of property that is currently held by Santee ... (that) would prevent Santee from selling it to any entity other than a state entity," Bobby Hitt, the state's Commerce Secretary, told the legislature's Joint Bond Review Committee earlier this week.
Hitt said the property could easily be transferred to the State Ports Authority or Palmetto Railways, an arm of the Commerce Department that's building a rail spur to link Volvo's manufacturing site to a line owned by CSX Corp.
Whichever state agency winds up with the property, Hitt said he doesn't think excluding the sliver of land from Santee Cooper's assets would hurt efforts to sell the utility.
"It would not be a deal killer," he said.
The rest of Volvo's manufacturing facility would not be affected by a Santee Cooper sale because it is on land owned by Berkeley County.
The Joint Bond Review Committee gave initial approve to the bond financing, with the State Fiscal Accountability Authority expected to give the measure the final go-ahead next week.
Volvo last month announced plans to expand its only U.S. manufacturing site, which is still under construction, by adding a second production line and an executive office building. The $520 million expansion would bring Volvo's total investment to more than $1 billion for an automobile plant that eventually will employ 3,910 workers.
Volvo expects to begin production of a newly redesigned S60 sedan by next summer, with the second line to build the popular XC90 SUV beginning in 2021.
The office complex will include a research and development center, a training center, management offices and a regional sales office. It will house about 300 workers.
In addition to the state funds, Berkeley County Council has approved $3.5 million in incentives tied to the expansion, with most of that money going to road improvements and a waterline tie-in to Lake Marion.
McMaster has proposed selling Santee Cooper as a way to help pay off more than $4 billion in debt tied to the failed V.C. Summer Nuclear Station. Santee Cooper and South Carolina Electric & Gas, its partner in the scuttled project, halted construction in July after years of delays and cost overruns.
State legislators have said they won't consider a sale until they get an independent analysis of Santee Cooper's value.
