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CHARLESTON – In what could be a case study for its real estate curriculum, the Charleston School of Law has put to bed a nearly $13 million hotel deal after a lengthy legal tussle with the city.
It only took seven-plus years and two mayoral administrations to reach the closing table.
The 1.06-acre lot at Meeting and Woolfe streets recently changed hands for $12.85 million, according to county real estate records. The buyer is an affiliate of Charlotte-based OmShera Holdings, which has been quietly biding its time since late 2018.
The school’s decision to sell the downtown property to the North Carolina hotel developer set off an at-times testy showdown with Charleston City Council, which at one point during the back-and-forth was accused of conducting a “shakedown.”
The origins of the marathon squabble can be traced back to a seemingly civic-minded real estate transaction more than two decades ago.
The city sold the land to the three-year-old startup school at the discounted rate of $875,000 in 2005 on the condition that 431 Meeting St. be developed into a permanent campus within six years. Otherwise, the ownership would transfer back.
The deal was later extended until 2017. Under the renegotiated terms, elected officials agreed that the school, which by then had determined the site was too small for its needs, could sell it in exchange for a 25 percent cut to the city, minus the original purchase price.
CSOL planned to plow its share of the profits into a different campus location, ideally somewhere on the peninsula. It found a patient buyer in OmShera, which committed in November 2018 to pay $12.85 million for the property and has put down earnest money. Within six months the lot was rezoned to allow a nine-story, full-service accommodation with 252 guest rooms.
‘Better be right’
The land-use change ignited a broader debate about reining in hotel development on the peninsula, while Historic Charleston Foundation asked a judge to reverse the zoning decision in a case that was later settled after the group struck an agreement with OmShera.
Days after the rezoning, the city changed its mind about the entire arrangement, though then-Mayor John Tecklenburg recused himself from the fray because of a potential conflict. Council was now demanding that CSOL surrender the deed in a move that would hold up the sale.
“The city has lots of risks from being cute and smart about this,” Georgetown attorney J. Edward “Ed” Bell III, who led a buyout of the private school more than a decade ago, told The Post and Courier in early 2021. “If you’re going to do a shakedown, you’d better be right.”
The law school followed up by filing a breach-of-contract lawsuit. It prevailed in 2024, but the dispute lingered as the city appealed.
Last year, both sides agreed it was time to lay down the gloves. The settlement approved by City Council and signed by Mayor William Cogswell in October cleared the way for the sale of 431 Meeting on Feb. 27 – at a price set more than seven years ago. OmShera did not respond to a request for comment. Its website shows an unidentified project in Charleston as “Under Development.”
The city said Thursday that it’s been paid its share of the sale proceeds, which came to more than $3.2 million before deductions. It also estimated OmShera’s hotel will generate about $1 million from a $5.10 per-square-foot development fee that helps fund affordable housing projects.
Nonprofit factor
The school cleared slightly less than $10 million that’s now sitting in an account “earning interest for a future building,” according to Bell, chairman and president emeritus of the Charleston School of Law.
“What’s the term? I think, finally,” he said March 13.
Bell said he knows of “four or five really good locations” on the peninsula for a new campus, along with “a couple that I would love to look at but aren’t available. So we really haven’t had a chance to put our little group together yet, but we will do that shortly and start up an earnest search.”
Settlement talks with the city picked up after the school jumped through numerous hoops to convert to a bona-fide nonprofit ownership structure in late 2024, he said. The change eased suspicions about a private for-profit group selling the land.
“I truly believe that was a hang up … because people didn’t know … what the money was to be used for and things like that,” Bell said. “And that was a legitimate public concern.”
He also noted that the school’s new nonprofit status allowed it to set up an endowment and solicit donations for its new home.
“It’s small, but we’re getting started. We’re beginning,” he said of the fund.
While it took seven years to sell 431 Meeting, Bell predicted that over the longer-term “this is really good for the school, and this is especially good for Charleston.”
He pointed to an impact study that found that CSOL, its faculty and 600-700 students generate more than $60 million a year in economic activity downtown.
“That’s huge,” Bell said. “And so it’s in Charleston’s best interest and the school’s best interest to stay on the peninsula.”
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