Noisette in top 10

North Charleston's Noisette neighborhood has been listed by Cottage Living as one of the ten best communities in America for 2008. The magazine's annual list of U.S. communities cited Noisette's redevelopment efforts in bestowing the honor.

From the Noisette Web site:

The Cottage Living article on North Charleston, written by Virginia-based writer Logan Ward, states, “At North Charleston’s historic core, however, is a critical 3,000-acre zone that by the 1990s had mounting problems, including a deteriorating prefab-home neighborhood, run-down public housing projects, outdated utilities, and a decommissioned Navy Yard. Today, those 3,000 acres – dubbed Noisette, after an 18th Century botanist – are being reshaped in a massive effort that may indeed result in a model new city, where sustainability and quality of life are the top priorities.”

The honor is a vindication of the efforts to pump new life into North Charleston’s historic neighborhoods by City Council and Mayor R. Keith Summey. Summey commented on the honor, saying, “This shows how far we’ve come over the last four years, in bringing the historic core of our city into the 21st Century. Private enterprise is revitalizing our community with green, sustainable building principles. Developments like Oak Terrace Preserve and Mixson Avenue are leading the way to a healthier, more productive, and brighter future for families and businesses that call North Charleston home.”

From The Post and Courier:

"We look at quality of space rather than quantity of space," said Lindsay Bierman, executive editor of Cottage Living. He said the magazine was so impressed that it might build a show house in 2009 in I'On's Mixson Avenue project.

"It puts us in a category North Charleston is not accustomed to being in," Mayor Keith Summey said. "While we are still a leading industrial and business community, what we are doing for development and redevelopment is being recognized as being a good place to live. It's come a long way from where we have been."

For some background on the Noisette project, check out this story published last December by Charleston City Paper.

Filed in