Owner Bobby Simons wants to replace his Isle of Palms seafood restaurant with a two-story building holding roughly 200 seats plus an upstairs event space, built on the same property so the current restaurant can stay open during construction. City Council voted 7-2 in late October to cut setbacks along J.C. Long Boulevard, Pavilion Drive and Carolina Boulevard to zero, 10 and 15 feet, and to reduce required parking by 25 percent. Simons says the remaining 15-foot setback on the Carolina Boulevard side still makes the plan hard to build.
Why this matters here
Setbacks and parking minimums, not demand, are what decide whether a Lowcountry restaurant can grow on land it already owns. Simons says about 70 employees would be out of work if the building had to close, which is the kind of math worth running before any owner pays for drawings.
First reported by postandcourier.com.
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