Mobile Home Sales in Whitehall, SC

A four-piece Charleston rock band is going on tour with the Goo Goo Dolls this fall.

Whitehall will join the ’90s alternative pop-rock group behind hits like “Dizzy Up the Girl,” “Stay With You” and “Slide” from Oct. 28 to Nov. 20 at theaters from Wisconsin to Texas.

They will open for a total of 16 shows for the Chaos in Bloom tour that highlights Goo Goo Dolls’ latest album.

“We’ve been trying to get in the right rooms with the right folks for the last few years,” said Whitehall lead singer and guitarist Paddy McKiernan. “This just fell in place; it’s insane to us still.”

It’s also particularly special for the band’s bassist, Brennan Clark, whose first concert was Goo Goo Dolls.

It’s a full circle moment for McKiernan, as well. The first two songs he learned on guitar were Jack Johnson’s “Banana Pancakes” and Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris.”

The tour comes as Whitehall prepares to release a new album that was written during a two-week retreat in a cabin in the mountains and then recorded with Kevin Ratterman in Los Angeles back in January.

Ratterman’s studio is centered around analog equipment, including its 1971 API console. The bells and whistles offered an impressive professional leg up for the local band, not to mention Ratterman’s legacy.

Back when Ratterman lived in Louisville, Ky., he engineered and played on records with bands like My Morning Jacket, Ray LaMontagne, Andrew Bird, Jim James, Houndmouth and White Reaper.

The Whitehall band members came in with an idea of what they wanted their record to sound like, and Ratterman “turned a bunch of knobs” and made it happen, said McKiernan.

After courting a variety of producers over Zoom calls during the pandemic, Ratterman easily seemed like the best match.

“We wanted to make sure our baby went in good hands,” Clark said of the new album. “Our manager introduced us, and it seemed like a really good fit.”

Eva Alexiou-Reo of FATA Booking & Management is the band’s manager. The company has been around since 1996, and to add to Ratterman’s list of accolades, Alexiou-Reo has worked with bands that include Jimmy Eat World, Flogging Molly and Rusted Root.

“In the music industry, it’s a lot about connections and who you know,” said Clark.

Whitehall is finally connecting with the right people. There isn’t yet a title or release date for the band’s upcoming album, but there are two already in the books. The debut 2018 disc “Ocean Fiction” was followed up by 2021 record “Swordfish Catcher.”

The upcoming album feels the most tonally refined and lyrically mature, offered guitarist Avery Greeson.

“We’re several years into adulthood at this point,” said 26-year-old McKiernan. “We’ve been navigating friendships and making big life changes that you just don’t have when you’re 20. We’ve got a little better footing on where our lives are going, and this record sounds like watching that happen.”

Plus, it most adequately combines the full range of the band members’ influences, which include Sonic Youth, Pavement and Coldplay, with a splash of Charleston’s own Americana sound.

″‘Swordfish Catcher’ was loud and garage-y,” Greeson said. “We’ve taken these tracks and built them out into Coldplay songs, almost. There’s a lot of space we wish we had known how to make before.”

At this point, the band members don’t want to spoil too much, but McKiernan offers that “one song is about dreams of airplanes” and another “about not checking your phone because you’re anxious as hell.”

The Goo Goo Dolls tour is “the first thing we’ve done that our moms actually get,” added Clark.

Drummer Davis Rowe shared he’s most excited about hanging with the iconic band backstage and also getting to play some “immaculate, gorgeous rooms” across the country. Those will include The Louisville Palace, The Moody Theater in Austin, Texas, and Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Catoosa, Okla.

Sadly, the group that formed and flourished in Charleston will be moving out of town sooner rather than later. The members are planning to pack their bags and head to Brooklyn, N.Y., this October before they head out on tour.

Their Aug. 20 show at 9 p.m. at The Royal American with Homemade Haircuts and By George will be one of the band’s last South Carolina gigs for a while.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be back,” McKiernan assured.

The Goo Goo Dolls have played a variety of shows in the Lowcountry, including a concert with Daughtry and Plain White T’s back at the then-Family Circle Stadium in 2014 and a performance at the Gaillard Center in 2019.

“If you listened to our first record and now our 12th record and told an alien it was the same band, he would not believe it in a million years,” Goo Goo Dolls founding band member, bassist and vocalist Robby Takac told The Post and Courier back before that Gaillard gig.

Whitehall, with almost three albums under their belt now, might just have the same transformation if they stick it out long enough. Certainly, they are already miles away from their initial sound, and the industry is catching on. Time will tell what happens next.

Whitehall member Brennan Clark’s first concert was the Goo Goo Dolls.

Flash forward more than a decade and Clark’s band, Whitehall, is opening for the Grammy Award-winning band on its “Chaos In Bloom” tour.

The tour makes a stop in Albuquerque at Kiva Auditorium on Friday, Nov. 18.

“It’s been really fun,” Clark says. “It’s kind of full circle for me. I saw them first and now we get to open for them. It’s surreal at the same time because we’re seeing places we’ve never seen before.”

Whitehall is an indie rock four-piece from Charleston, South Carolina.

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The band is known for their lyrics, which have an insatiable desire for more out of life.

The band is rounded out by Paddy Mckiernan, Avery Greeson and Davis Rowe.

Whitehall is gearing up to release its new album, “Maizy,” on Jan. 25.

The 11-track album was created a little different than the band’s previous efforts.

The members of Whitehall have been finished with the album and can’t wait to release it.

“We just want to give it to everyone,” the band says collectively during a recent phone interview. “The album process was quicker than usual.”

The members wrote the material for the album in two weeks and was a collaborative effort.

While each member has their own taste, Whitehall came together to create music that chronicles where they are at now in life.

“In the most general sense, our music is about being 25 or 26 and coming into your adulthood,” the band says. “We’re three years out of college and we are all dealing with different growing pains.”

Because the band has been making music for awhile, each member feels like their bond has grown and trust is there during the process.

“We are aware of each other’s thought process,” the band continues. “One of us would pick up on a vibe and we would just go with it.”

With more than a handful of albums and EPs released to date, Whitehall says the set list encompasses all of its music – including the hits.

“All kidding aside, we have two songs from nearly every project,” the band says. “We take the best songs from each and weave it into a set.”

After the tour is over with the Goo Goo Dolls, the band will return to Brooklyn, New York, where they all moved to in October. The band will finish out the year with a show there on Dec. 9.

Goo Goo Dolls With Whitehall

WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 18

WHERE: Kiva Auditorium, 401 Second St. NW

HOW MUCH: Tickets start at $39, plus fees, at ticketmaster.com

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New conceptual plans for the waterfront Whitehall development on Lady’s Island will allow the developer to build approximately 30 homes and four mixed-use buildings — rather than apartments — on 10 acres next to a planned public park.

The plans were approved by the city of Beaufort’s Metropolitan Planning Commission Monday night, separate from Beaufort County Council’s decision Monday to work toward settling a lawsuit over the park.

Whitehall Development Group received conceptual approval for single-family homes, townhomes and a few mixed-use buildings on the property along Sea Island Parkway.

Adjacent to that planned development is the 9.72-acre Whitehall Park, where Beaufort County wants to build a passive park with a natural preserve, covered dock, bike path, picnic pavilion and overlook.

Beaufort County Passive Parks Manager Stefanie Nagid said the park’s “main purpose is for conservation of the property and enjoyment of nature.”

“It’s going to remain a place for people to come and have a quiet space to enjoy nature and to bird watch and enjoy the views and sunsets,” she said.

The county is in an ongoing lawsuit with developers over road access and an easement agreement related to drainage on the park property.

Monday night, after Beaufort County Council met in closed session, Council member Brian Flewelling moved to “make a settlement offer regarding the developers of Whitehall Plantation as discussed in executive session.”

The motion was unanimously approved. However, the county has provided few details on the terms of the settlement and what it means for development of the park.

Interim County Administrator Eric Greenway told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette the settlement “relates” to the county’s plans for the passive park, which were reviewed by the county’s Natural Resources Committee last week.

Because the park is a joint project between the county and the city of Beaufort, Greenway said city officials will have to approve plans for the park and the development. The county’s settlement relates only to the park property, he said.

“Our attorneys have the authority to approach the plaintiffs and the developers with a counter offer on how to settle it,” Council member Paul Sommerville told the newspapers.

David Prichard, Beaufort’s community development director, said there’s “no direct connection” between the county’s lawsuit and the city of Beaufort’s approval process for the adjacent development.

The plans approved by the city’s Metropolitan Planning Commission eliminate the developer’s previous proposal to build large apartments on the property. Instead, the mixed-use development calls for:

▪ About 16 residential single family lots

▪ Eight townhomes

▪ Four mixed-use buildings

▪ Three river homes

▪ Four garden cottages.

After Monday’s approval, the developers will have to submit a more detailed proposal to the city of Beaufort to show where infrastructure and stormwater are planned, Prichard said. Those plans will be reviewed by the city’s Technical Review Committee.

Once that is approved, developers must submit a project permit that allows them to begin building improvements like water and sewer lines, he said.

Prichard estimates the process could take “four weeks tops.”

As for plans for the passive park, the city of Beaufort was slated to discuss the conceptual plan during its work session Monday evening.

Council member Paul Sommerville said it was his “personal crusade” to get a larger park on the property.

“I’m elated about it,” he said. “It’s going to be a real asset to the city of Beaufort and Beaufort County in perpetuity. The most important thing to me is, we’re going to have the park.”

SPARTANBURG, SC (WSPA) — If you’re thinking of moving to Greenville, South Carolina, some of the most desirable locations for homes are near good public schools. To help people navigate this search, we collected data from all the elementary schools in the Upstate region and found that most of the top institutions are not far from Greenville.

Overall, the state is struggling to provide quality education for students. US News ranks South Carolina 41st in the country for education.

However, there are many individual public schools that offer students a competitive education. You just need to find one.

The search for the best local elementary schools can be complicated, involving many factors. How well students perform in the classroom, through standardized testing, is just one of many important factors used by parents to measure scholastic achievement.

7NEWS gathered standardized test scores published by South Carolina’s Department of Education to find out which elementary schools near Greenville had the most students meeting or exceeding academic expectations.

We are publishing the 2021 results with data visualizations for readers to navigate the local academic landscape more thoughtfully.

When thinking about these results, it’s important to remember that education cannot be reduced to a number. The educational environment at each school is different. Grades on standardized tests only show part of the student experience.

To determine the top 10 public elementary schools near Greenville, 7NEWS examined data from SC Ready, a state-wide program that evaluates schools with standardized tests. We then assigned point values to schools that performed the best on those tests, which measure lesson retention in English, Math, and Science, starting in the third grade.

The elementary schools that scored the highest in each of those three categories made it to the top of our list.

Below are the categories used by the SC’s Department of Education to measure the standards we used to build this top 10 list:

A student who exceeds expectations, as defined by the grade-level content standards, is well prepared for the next grade level.

A student who meets expectations, as defined by the grade-level content standards, is prepared for the next grade level.

A student who approaches expectations, as defined by the grade-level content standards, needs additional academic support to be prepared for the next grade level.

A student who does not meet expectations, as defined by the grade-level content standards, needs substantial academic support to be prepared for the next grade level.

Explore the data below to find out how well your nearby elementary schools ranked.

Plans for taxpayers to buy and maintain a 10-acre waterfront park in northern Beaufort County could be approved by early next week after a key agreement was solidified Tuesday, though the eventual price is still being kept secret.

Beaufort County would buy the 9.72-acre Whitehall property on Lady’s Island from a private developer to preserve as a park, and the city will provide maintenance, per the terms of a 30-year agreement the City Council unanimously approved Tuesday.

The deal requires another vote by County Council on Monday to close. The cost of the purchase, which would come largely from county land preservation funds, has been kept secret.

County Council Chairman Paul Sommerville said the cost would be included in the body’s potential vote Monday but that he couldn’t reveal the price before then.

Sommerville said numbers have only been discussed behind closed doors and, despite the deal involving public money, is kept secret because of the possibility of others competing for the same property. He previously said his understanding is the property was valued at $680,000 per acre, which comes out to $6.6 million for the proposed park property.

Barbara Holmes, land protection director for the Open Land Trust, declined to reveal the negotiated price Wednesday but said the number is below its appraised value.

“We go through exactly the same process for anything we buy,” Sommerville said. “This just happens to be a big-ticket item.”

The Rural and Critical Lands Program is funded by referendums where voters have agreed to pay higher taxes towards land preservation efforts. Another $25 million for the program is on the ballot for Nov. 6.

The Land Trust, which administers the program, shelved other high-priority targets when Whitehall became available, Director Cindy Baysden said Tuesday.

The document approved this week outlines low-key uses for the park, such as walking, biking and fishing. Weddings or similar events eventually could be held on the property, Beaufort Mayor Billy Keyserling said.

City officials last month expressed concern about maintaining the park when they didn’t know its size, design or how much it might eventually cost city taxpayers to upkeep.

The city is prepared to borrow $8 million to address drainage issues in the Mossy Oaks area, with millions of dollars also needed for drainage projects in other areas. The Beaufort Downtown Marina has maintenance issues that eventually will need to be addressed, Beaufort resident and former Redevelopment Commission member Alan Dechovitz told council members.

City officials still don’t know the eventual annual maintenance costs for the park under the approved agreement, Keyserling said Tuesday. Asked why he’s comfortable moving forward without knowing the eventual cost, Keyserling said the agreement limits the city’s liability and allows for control over how it eventually looks and is used.

Beaufort would maintain the park in its condition when it opens. Future improvements would require a funding source, whether from the city or elsewhere.

“Should (the county) want to do something with the land while we have it leased, that means we plan together,” Keyserling said. “If we want to do something that is bigger than we anticipate, we say we can’t do it or we can do it, but we need you to help.”

The county is working to buy the park property from Beaufort developer Sam Levin and his partners, who would develop Whitehall’s remaining 10 acres.

“My concern is we’re spending a large chunk of our Rural and Critical land monies to take down 9.72 acres, when maybe that money would go to make a larger growth management impact (elsewhere on Lady’s Island),” City Councilman Stephen Murray said, noting recent studies that show a the potential for thousands of more homes and more than 2.2 million square feet of business space in the community.

Baysden acknowledged Whitehall would go down as one of the Rural and Critical Lands Program’s most expensive purchases. But she said not doing so would be a “huge loss.”

“We’re not trying to just build more parks for the heck of it,” she said after the agreement was approved. “We’re trying to preserve this particular, very special piece of land, so that everybody can enjoy it.”

Beaufort County Councilman York Glover, a St. Helena Island native whose district includes Whitehall, said maintaining the view crossing onto Lady’s Island from downtown Beaufort is important to preserve the area’s small-town feel.

“Development is going to happen, there’s no question about that,” he said. “There’s some properties I believe should be preserved, and that’s one.”

This story was originally published September 19, 2018, 1:43 PM.