Few state transportation officials or James Island residents questioned the need for a second, speedier route off James Island, but actually building the 2.9-mile bridge, also known as the James Island connector or the James Island expressway, was no easy task.
Preliminary talks began in the early 1960s, and much of the early debate centered on where the connector should enter the Charleston peninsula.
Preservationists feared early plans to send it into Beaufain Street would harm the western edge of the historic city, so its entry eventually was moved north to Calhoun Street. Scarborough, a former highway commissioner and state legislator, played a leading role in the talks.
Even when the $124.7 million was in place to build it, miscalculations by the state Department of Transportation set the work back two years. The harbor's bed was not as dense as estimated, requiring a series of columns be reinstalled with a sturdier support system.
"I didn't think I would ever live to see it," said Molly Jordan, a James Island resident. "The connector has been a godsend for traffic on James Island. The best thing it did was get rid of the one-way-in, one-way-out element of the island."
Between the 1960s, when the project was proposed, and its completion on this day in 1993, the James Island and Folly Beach population grew from 13,800 to about 30,000. The new route only fed the growth, especially in the area where it emptied onto James Island at Folly and Harbor View roads.
Before the connector opened, it took residents 25 minutes or more to reach downtown Charleston. The main way off the island was down Folly Road and over the Wappoo Creek drawbridge to turn-offs for U.S. Highway 17, near South Windermere Shopping Center.
One person with a front-seat view of the changes is Jordan, who delivered mail for the James Island Post Office for 29 years.
In 1955, she and her husband, Tommy, bought a home on Bur Clare Road, then a dirt road off Folly, miles from downtown Charleston. The neighborhood consisted mostly of potato, cabbage and tomato farms, and the couple put $50 down for an $8,900 three bedroom house on half an acre.Today, Tommy Jordan said they easily could get more than 10 times that for their property.
The cost to rent on James Island also is climbing, as several apartments near the connector tout the easy commute downtown.
Since the connector opened, the average cost to rent an apartment on James Island has nearly doubled from $490 per month to $900, according to Carolina Real Data of Charlotte.
Hugging the base of the connector at its Folly Road terminus are two luxury apartment complexes, both built after the completion of the connector.
The Enclave, built in 1998, charges up to $1,550 for a three-bedroom apartment. The Merritt at James Island, built in 2000, charges up to $1,770 for a three-bedroom apartment.
"We tell them (potential renters) to time it," said Amelia Deadwyler, property manager with The Enclave, a 300-unit luxury apartment complex roughly one block from the connector's terminus at Folly Road. "It will take you longer to find a parking spot downtown than it will take you to actually get downtown."
Even older complexes, such as the Merritt Quarterdeck, built in 1986, can still get nearly $1,000 per month for an apartment.
"The connector is a huge help for us to stay full and to make money," said Catharine Crowder, a marketing specialist with Cornerstone Reality Income Trust, which owns the Merritt Quarterdeck and the Merritt at James Island. "Especially since we are an older property."
Almost 40 percent of The Enclave's residents are affiliated with the Medical University of South Carolina or Roper Hospital. About 12 percent of the Merritt Quarterdeck's units are rented to medical professionals, and an additional 19 percent to students at MUSC or the College of Charleston.
Even complexes with some distance between themselves and the connector are finding it easy to fill apartments. Riverland Woods Apartments, located just before the intersection of Folly and Fort Johnson roads, attracts young professionals. Its top prices are slightly less than others at $1,130 a month, but it is five miles from the connector.
The connector's convenience is beginning to lead to congestion, with roughly 56,600 cars crossing it daily. More cars means more people. Some 6,000 people have moved to the James Island-Folly Beach area since 1990.
In a sense, the changes being wrought by the connector have not run their course.
In recent years, there has been talk of continuing the divided four-lane highway from Folly Road past James Island County Park, onto Johns Island and then to Citadel Mall, completing the final leg of the Mark Clark Expressway.
That work seemed certain until the S.C. Supreme Court unanimously ruled last month to throw out Charleston County's planned half-percent sales tax, which would have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars for new roads.
Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. said that if the sales tax dies, so does the prospect of completing the Mark Clark Expressway across James and Johns islands.
Unless the Supreme Court reverses the opinion that overturned the tax, which is considered unlikely, then "I think it's dead," Riley said of the road project.
Riley said extending the Mark Clark would provide important traffic relief on James Island and in West Ashley, while the new sales tax money also would have helped preserve the rural character of Johns Island by providing money for green space. He said that if the Supreme Court does not reverse itself, then another referendum could be held in 2004.
Some environmentalists opposed the sales tax because it would fund road projects such as the Mark Clark extension that they say would accelerate urban sprawl and the loss of green space.
Unlike the connector, which was built in response to growth on James Island and Folly Beach, its eventual connection to the existing Mark Clark Expressway would cross Johns Island, a community whose population has only doubled, to roughly 12,600 residents, during the past 40 years.
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