Home Inspection in Ridgeville, SC

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include the name of the deceased.

The Dorchester County Coroner has identified a woman found with her automobile in a pond near Ridgeville.

Doris T. Gallardo, 85, of Eutawville, was found in a pond near the Walmart Distribution Center in Ridgeville Friday, Nov. 17, at approximately 7:15 a.m. She was pronounced dead at the scene at 9:58 a.m. by Dorchester County Coroner Paul J. Brouthers.

An autopsy was conducted on Gallardo Saturday, Nov. 18, at the Medical University of South Carolina. Her cause of death was determined to be drowning and the manner of death is accidental.

The Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office and Dorchester County Coroner’s Office are investigating.

Multiple agencies responded to the call at 7:24 a.m. and as first responders arrived, they discovered a vehicle submerged in the retention pond. Lt. Rick Carson of the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Office said it was determined at that time there was a fatality associated with the incident.

Out of 111 Girl Scout councils across the United States, the local Girl Scouts of Eastern SC were the No. 1 sellers of Girl Scout cookies this past year.

While rising costs put a pinch on wallets, Girl Scout cookies within the Eastern SC council remain $4 a box. The promotion is being billed as “Still 4 in 24,” as cookie prices are still $4 a box in 2024.

The cookie sale officially began on Jan. 13, and booth sales started on Jan. 19. Booth sales are the locations where Girl Scouts are seen selling cookies at familiar big box stores and small businesses. The cookie season runs through March 17.

To find a nearby cookie location, text “cookies” to 59618. Explore cookie flavors and varieties at bit.ly/ourcookieflavors.

To speak with a Girl Scout Troop, council official or volunteer, call or text communications director Donna Lee at 843-568-1292 to be connected with someone locally.

The Girl Scout cookie sale and entrepreneur program aims to teach five essential skills:

Follow Girl Scouts of Eastern South Carolina (GSESC) to keep up with booth locations and other opportunities at www.facebook.com/GirlScoutsESC.

Girl Scouts range in age from kindergarteners to seniors in high school.

RIDGEVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) - Walmart’s $220 million-dollar international distribution center in Ridgeville is now open for business.

Officials from Dorchester County and Gov. Henry McMaster spoke at the grand opening on Friday.

“This is just one more sign of our great prosperity that’s going to keep on going,” McMaster says. “This is one of the three largest such distribution centers in the world.”

So far, Walmart has hired over 900 associates and they are looking to hire a total of 1,300 full-time employees. The Walmart distribution center is expected to increase the Port of Charleston’s volume by 5 percent, bringing them more jobs as well.

Jeffrey Holzbauer, General Manager of Imports with Walmart says this center will have a huge impact on Dorchester County. Not only for the number of jobs they are bringing but the pay rate as well.

Along with the distribution center, there are 122 retail stores in the state. In total, Walmart employs over 30,000 associates in South Carolina.

This will be the 5th distribution facility in the state, and its impact will reach farther than South Carolina. The center will supply 850 Walmart and Sam’s Club stores across the southeast.

Holzbauer says over the past few years keeping shelves in stores stocked has been an issue. The distribution center’s main purpose is to limit situations like that happening by making sure the right stores have the right products at the right time.

“Trailers come in from the port, folks then unload them,” Holzbauer says. “They go to a storage rack until a store is running low on inventory. Then we send associates to pick that product, take it to the ship dock, and put it in containers that’s destined for a regional distribution center.”

The town of Ridgeville was chosen for the distribution center for a few reasons. It’s strategically located relatively close to the port of Charleston. Holzbauer says there were a lot of qualified associates in the area, and there’s access to major transportation channels to get their products to their stores as fast as possible.

South Carolina Ports Authority President and CEO Jim Newsome says this building could be the tip of the iceberg for a county focused on business.

“We own this whole industrial campus, except we granted this to Walmart, so we’re working on other projects out here,” Newsome says. “I think there’s a number of distribution projects that can come here because of the location between I-26 and I-95.”

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RIDGEVILLE — The relocation of the Dorchester Heritage Center is slowly beginning, following a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the REV Pavilion.

The Leadership Dorchester class, hosted by the Greater Summerville/Dorchester County Chamber of Commerce, helped by raising $60,000 to build the first structure of the new center: the REV Pavilion, which opened to the public Oct. 22. It was named for the REV Federal Credit Union, one of the sponsors for the project.

The leadership class requires each year’s participants to do a project that leaves a lasting impact on the county, said class member Rebecca Collett of Collett Media.

Collett said the class of 24 unanimously decided to help with the relocation and construction of the pavilion.

Justin Lee, a member of the class and executive director of operations at Gilbert & Lee Construction, said part of the reason the class chose the project was to feature nonprofits.

“We wanted to bridge the gap between western Dorchester County and the Greater Summerville area,” Lee said.

The leadership class had $7,000 left over from what it raised for the pavilion. It gave to the Heritage Center, which will honor the people in Dorchester County and help with historic grave preservation, Collett said.

“The center being located somewhat in the center of the county, I think it will gain lots of foot traffic since it’s in a very convenient place for everyone,” Lee said.

Lee anticipates breaking ground around March, and hopes to finish construction in the summer of 2024.

The Dorchester Heritage Center is a nonprofit that opened in 2014. Currently in the Dorchester County Courthouse in St. George, the center started small with just an archives genealogical library but grew to open a 4,000-square-foot museum in 2017.

Within 5½ weeks of the museum opening, over 3,000 people had visited. The center’s goal is to preserve the county’s history, said Phyllis Hughes, chairman of the Dorchester Heritage Center.

Judit Jimenez Sainz expected to see penguins as part of her research trip to Antarctica. But the scientist at Medical University of South Carolina had in mind the placid, ambient-noise version you see behind glass at zoos.

Jumping out of a rubber raft onto an icy shore brought a shock.

“I didn’t know that penguins could be so loud,” Sainz said with a laugh.

In their defense, it was mating season.

The focus of the November trip was really the dozens of women scientists who accompanied her, part of an international effort to not only raise awareness of climate challenges, but also to help create a network of women and researchers across the globe who can help overcome longstanding gender biases in their respective fields.

Women in STEMM

Women college students have far outnumbered men for at least a decade, and in 2022 made up 58 percent of all those enrolled, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

But in the STEMM fields — science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine — it is a different story: Women account for 35 percent of students enrolled in those fields across the globe, and less than one-third of researchers are women.

The majority of U.S. medical students are women beginning in the 2018-19 school year, but women account for less than one in five in terms of deans or department chairs, and make up only 25 percent of full professors.

It is a problem across the globe — women scientists are less likely to be included on international collaborations or to migrate to institutions in other countries or be visiting professors in other countries, said Dr. Cassidy R. Sugimoto, co-author of the book “Equity for Women in Science.”

They are also less likely to have their work cited if they publish, and the lack of international collaborations, which are often the most prestigious, means women have “a compound disadvantage: Their work is always cited less and they tend to collaborate less internationally, which then reduces their visibility again,” said Sugimoto, professor and Tom and Marie Patton chair of the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. All of those factors — citations and publications especially — influence awards, grants, and ultimately career advancement in science and who attains leadership positions, she said.

Recognizing the need for more women leaders in these fields, the Australian-based Homeward Bound program started an initiative to help women develop skills and strategies to advance their careers and become more visible in their fields. It envisions a collaborative and diverse network of 10,000 across the globe by 2036 who can help influence decisions in a meaningful way.

This effort has also been combined with increasing awareness of climate change and its impacts.

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“I do believe it is a good idea to be in a program where the aim is to train as many women as possible to take care of the planet with the science we do,” said Sainz, who studies mechanisms of DNA repair in cells and mutations in cancer.

The idea is exciting to Sugimoto, who is not affiliated with the program.

“I think it starts to chip away at some of these systemic issues that we are seeing,” she said.

On the bottom of the world

The Antarctica expeditions combine both of those initiatives, as well as taking aim at historic slights. While the first recorded woman explorer went to Antarctica in 1935, women scientists were often excluded from trips there until the 1970s on the grounds that the environment was too harsh for them or that all-male conclaves would be more focused and productive.

Sainz, who is currently running her own lab at MUSC, was in a different place when she applied to the program in 2019. She was then a postdoctoral fellow in someone else’s lab at Yale University and wasn’t sure where her academic career would take her. Her trip was supposed to happen in 2020, then COVID-19 hit. It was postponed until November 2023, and in the interim, it grew to 88 women from 18 countries.

“It was a very nurturing environment, it was a very inspiring environment, because all of these women are aiming for leadership positions across the globe,” Sainz said.

The 19-day journey’s isolation added to that. With access to the internet limited and aboard a relatively small ship, the passengers had to put down their phones and close their laptops and talk to each other.

As they learned about each other’s science and research, it gave the participants a chance to consider leadership style and strategy through those conversations. It gave them the chance “to connect with other leaders in an environment where they are more willing and open to a conversation because there are not these distractions,” Sainz said.

The outside environment also brought home lessons. While it is one of the coldest places on Earth, it is also warming rapidly. That is not an abstract problem with all of the ice there holding immense amounts of water, Sainz said.

“So if Antarctica started melting, that would affect places like Charleston and South Carolina because the sea level would rise and many areas would be in danger of flooding,” she said.

That ice and the stark, otherworldly landscape also caught Sainz off guard. Everything she had seen in photos was white, and she expected a monochrome atmosphere. Instead, it was a whirl of hues.

“It has many colors, from whites to blues to grays,” she said. “Our eyes were not ready. It takes a few days to adapt to it.”

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Its sound is the wind, from a quiet lull to suddenly howling. At times it was so fierce they could not move around. And at one point they were socked in for a couple of days by a blizzard.

And it was cold. The program recommended wearing three layers; Sainz opted for five, and her hands and feet were still cold.

But there were other, lasting sensations. Sainz was out on the water in an inflatable boat when a whale breached the surface nearby, exhaling loudly.

“You could feel it in your body, kind of like a wave, kind of like a vibration,” she said. “It took me by surprise.”

Bringing lessons home

Back home, Sainz said she is still processing all of those sensations, all of those conversations and what they will mean to her work going forward.

She is studying the BRCA gene, which helps repair broken strands of DNA in cells. She likens it to old phone cords: If one gets cut, the repair mechanism can copy and replace it.

“We all have BRCA in our cells, and that’s a good thing — they keep our DNA in good shape,” Sainz said.

The mutations in those genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, are well-known for increasing the risk of breast and ovarian cancer in women. But just in the last year, those mutations are also suspected of increasing the risk of certain familial cancers and could be at work in cancers as varied as melanoma, prostate and pancreatic cancer.

“I’m zooming out to explore how mutations in these genes, DNA repair genes, might alter their function” in those other areas, Sainz said.

The lessons from the trip reinforced to her that she “wanted to have an inclusive and diverse group to try to tackle questions that are concerning to many populations in our society.”

As Sainz tackles tough scientific questions in an increasingly complex academic world, she now has connections to a growing collaborative of leaders and “other experts in this network that can help me to navigate that,” she said.

And that kind of program can have a broader effect as well, because diversifying science and science leaders means subjects and topics that weren’t studied before can be part of the conversation, Sugimoto said.

Women “taking a leadership in science is going to change the tapestry of science itself,” she said. “My argument is that will be more reflective of the full population of society as we diversify science.”

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If you’re seeking a day trip from Charleston – a Lowcountry retreat that may seem far away from it all, but is really only a short 35-mile drive – consider the town of Ridgeville, SC.

It has a small town feel and friendly charm, enveloped within the woods of Dorchester County. While driving through the town, you may get stopped by one of the many trains that passes through, but luckily, your kids will enjoy watching it “toot” by.

Although technically not located in Ridgeville, we suggest starting your day in nearby Cottageville at Bee City Petting Zoo to beat the heat and the crowds. Family owned and operated for over 30 years, Bee City is a famous local spot for exotic animal encounters. As the name implies, there is a honeybee farm as well, and they have a petting zoo and butterfly garden.

Some of the animals you’ll encounter (and have the opportunity to feed) at Bee City include wallabies, lemurs, alpacas, monkeys and goats. They also feature snakes, lizards, turtles, frogs and alligators. Before you go, be sure to stop by the gift shop to pick up a bottle of their delicious honey which is processed on site.

From Bee City, head to Givhan’s Ferry State Park for even more fun. The kids will love the playground, and if you fish, there’s a beautiful spot on the Edisto River where you’ll hopefully reel one in. After a little fishing, there’s even a 1.5 mile hiking trail called River Bluff Nature Trail that will take you up to a beautiful view of the Edisto.

Fun fact: The Edisto River is the longest free-flowing blackwater river in North America. You can paddle 23 miles to Colleton State Park, if you feel so inclined.

And no visit to Ridgeville is complete without a stop at Duke’s Bar-B-Que. This almost 40-year-old local favorite, feels more like a church BBQ or a family reunion, rather than a restaurant. The buffet style has plenty of options to choose from. Trust me…you won’t leave hungry! Keep in mind, Duke’s is only open Friday-Sunday.

There is so much to see and do in the tri-county area and exploring the north end in the town of Ridgeville will be a day filled with adventure that you won’t soon forget.

RIDGEVILLE, S.C. — Portman Industrial has broken ground on Phase II of Campus 4 within Camp Hall Commerce Park in Ridgeville, a suburb of Charleston. The second phase comprises a 1.1 million-square-foot industrial facility situated on 110.6 acres near the Port of Charleston and adjacent to Volvo Cars’ manufacturing plant. The cross-dock facility will feature tilt-up concrete walls, a structural steel frame, TPO roof, 40-foot clear heights, 215 dock doors, four drive-in doors, 759 car spaces and 851 trailer spaces.

The design-build team includes general contractor Frampton Construction, architect McMillan Pazdan Smith and civil engineer Thomas & Hutton. Lee Allen and Kevin Ross of JLL’s Charleston office are handling leasing for the project. Phase II is set for a summer 2023 delivery. Phase I, which comprises three buildings spanning 940,000 square feet, is currently under construction and is more than 60 percent preleased.

PLAINFIELD, ILL. — Marcus & Millichap has brokered the $1.9 million sale of a Chili’s ground lease in Plainfield, about 40 miles southwest of Chicago. The restaurant building spans 6,150 square feet. The property at 12740 Illinois Route 59 is situated near Target, Ross Dress for Less and Five Below stores. Austin Weisenbeck and Sean Sharko of Marcus & Millichap represented the seller, an individual trust. The duo also secured and represented the buyer, a Chicagoland private investor and limited liability company. The property sold at the full list price.

ADDISON, ILL. — Clear Height Properties has acquired a 34,700-square-foot industrial building in Addison, a western suburb of Chicago, for an undisclosed price. The property at 1404 W. Fullerton Ave. features convenient access to I-355 between I-290 and Route 83. The facility features six exterior docks, seven drive-thru service bays and an additional 1.5 acres of secured land for outdoor storage or trailer parking. Nick Saraceno and Howard Caplan of CTK Chicago Partners represented the undisclosed seller. Robin Stolberg and Dominic Carbonari of JLL are marketing the property for lease.

GAHANNA, OHIO — PEBB Enterprises has sold Hunter’s Ridge Shopping Center in Gahanna near Columbus for $10 million. WB Ventures LLC purchased the 84,724-square-foot retail center, which is 93 percent leased. Planet Fitness and Goodwill are the anchor tenants. PEBB acquired the asset in 2018. The property was originally built in 1975. Evan Halkias and Hank Davis of Cushman & Wakefield represented PEBB in the sale.

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QUAKERTOWN, PA. — New Jersey-based investment firm First National Realty Partners (FNRP) has acquired Richland Marketplace, a 162,000-square-foot shopping center in Quakertown, about 50 miles north of Philadelphia. Built in 2009, the center houses tenants such as Aldi, Best Buy, PetSmart, Planet Fitness, Staples, Ulta, Visionworks, Sally Beauty and Skechers. Colin Behr, Jim Galbally, Chris Munley and James Graf of JLL represented the seller, KPR, in the transaction.