Carolinas put out
welcome mat for retirees

By REBECCA COOK
Staff Writer

For more than a decade, Lancaster County leaders have dreamed of the big
catch - the industry that would boost Lancaster's tax base and make it more
than just another fading mill town, more than just another rural county
near Charlotte.

Now, they believe they've found that industry: retirement.

"To change the tax base, we needed something big, and we needed something
fast, and we needed something that would generate a tremendous amount of
income," says Lancaster County Administrator Chap Hurst.

So in their most ambitious move ever, county leaders decided to transform
6,000 wooded acres along the Catawba River into a planned retirement
community - with golf courses, marina, town center, and 7,000 homes in the
$120,000 to $1 million price range.

The retirement industry is growing fast in the Carolinas. North Carolina
has rocketed from No. 27 to No. 5 in the national rankings of retirement
destinations since 1975. South Carolina has risen too, from No. 25 to No.
18. Though Florida, California, Arizona and Texas still attract the most
retirees, some experts say that as the baby boomers age, North Carolina may
become the next Florida. Places like Chapel Hill, Hendersonville, Pinehurst
and Hilton Head Island, S.C., have already tapped into the growing market
of relocating retirees.

The planned retirement community in Lancaster, Catawba Run, will cost at
least $37 million to build in the next 10 years. Developers have pledged
$15 million, and are asking the county to contribute $21 million for
infrastructure costs. It's a huge investment for Lancaster, but the
infusion of retirees can be salvation for small Carolinas towns. And
experts say retirement communities are feasible.

"Projects like this are really going to work," says Mike Sullivan, head of
50-Plus Communication Consulting, a national investment consulting firm.
With the baby boomers getting older and looking to stay active when they
retire, Catawba Run will benefit from perfect timing, Sullivan says.

In Lancaster County, even more than golf and upscale housing, they're
selling a return to small-town America, where people still smile at
strangers and know the names of their shopkeepers. Catawba Run residents
won't be shut off in a gated community. Planners hope they'll socialize,
shop and take part in local politics.

In search of sun, sea and golf, elderly Americans have steered toward South
Carolina's coastal Beaufort and Horry counties. Dell Webb, the nation's
largest retirement community builder, picked Hilton Head for its first
eastern Sun City. It was an investment that Wake Forest professor Charles
Longino calls "the Good Housekeeping seal of approval" for South Carolina.
Inland S.C. counties are catching on to what N.C. boosters have said for
years: More retirees in your state means more money.
"North Carolina may eventually come to be known, like Arizona, as a
retirement state," said Longino, author of "Retirement Migration in
America."

In Charlotte, a new golf retirement community called The Cypress of
Charlotte recently sold $30 million in houses in just 30 days, reaching the
100-contract mark five months ahead of schedule.

"It has proved there is pent-up demand," Cypress President Jim Coleman
said. That demand has made Mecklenburg one of the top five N.C. counties
for attracting retirees. Coleman estimates the 310 Cypress residents will
pay more than $1 million a year in property taxes to Mecklenburg County.

Eyeing Mecklenburg's growth with envy, Lancaster leaders hope to cash in on
the best of both Carolinas - a combination of small-town charm,
championship golf, the Catawba River and closeness (45 minutes) to
Charlotte. They follow the footsteps of McCormick County in southwest South
Carolina, where the 3,000-acre Savannah Lakes Village turned a poor county
with a pretty lake into a community of well-to-do retirees.

In 1982, unemployment in McCormick was 22 percent and U.S. News & World
Report called the county a ghost town. Jennings McAbee, longtime S.C. House
member for the area, asked the General Assembly for drastic action.
The legislature approved a $20 million bond issue to build a resort-style
retirement community on Strom Thurmond Lake.

Now McCormick is home to a championship golf course, marina, $3 million
recreation center and clubhouse. About 90 houses are built at Savannah
Lakes each year, with an average price tag of $140,000, and 3,700 lots have
been sold.

A quarter of the county's work force is employed there - as golf pros and
waitresses, construction engineers and sales associates, security guards
and secretaries. Savannah Lakes property owners pay 40 percent of the
town's total property taxes. Residents pay fees of about $480 a year to pay
off the bonds.

A $15 million promise

While it's certainly no ghost town, Lancaster, population 57,000, has
lagged neighboring Union County, N.C., and York County, S.C., in capturing
the benefits of Charlotte's growth. Like McCormick, Lancaster has a
beautiful rural site and some determined county leaders. The developers are
asking the county to contribute $21 million to build Catawba Run, and like
McCormick, the county is asking the state to loan them the money.

Catawba Run Development Corp., formed by Fred Purcell and Thomas Forbes for
this purpose, promises to invest $15 million in the first four years to
build a golf course, marina, fitness trails and a clubhouse. Purcell and
Forbes, both of Austin, Texas, beat out 10 other would-be developers with
their proposal. What swung the deal, County Council Chairman Ray Gardner
said, was that $15 million promise.

"We wanted somebody to come in there and sink their teeth into it," he
said. "In four or five years, if they walk away, we've got something into
it."

But Purcell and Forbes are asking a lot too. They want Lancaster County -
with an annual budget of $15 million - to contribute at least $21 million
to buy the property, build roads and extend water and sewer service to the
river.

Purcell, a former dentist, became a real estate developer in 1983. Since
then, he has helped create several golf course communities, and he
specializes in mixing residential, recreational and commercial land uses.
Forbes, no relation to the magazine magnate, is an Austin lawyer who has
done graduate study in architecture. Though this is his first foray into
development, he specializes in public law and has guided other Texas
counties down the path Lancaster is planning to take.

S.C. Rep. Billy Boan, also director of the Lancaster economic development
corporation, says the county will request $21 million in state-financed
loans to begin building, and future Catawba Run residents will pay the
money back through a special tax.

County leaders stress that if the development goes sour, local taxpayers
won't be left with the bill. They haven't signed a deal yet, but County
Administrator Hurst said that talks with a state source have assured him
the money is available.

The 6,000 acres set aside for Catawba Run in Lancaster are covered with
pine trees now, and generate only $6,000 a year in taxes. The land,
upstream from Lake Wateree, is owned by Crescent Resources, the development
arm of Duke Power. In 10 years, Purcell and Forbes promise that tax revenue
on the land will reach $5.5 million.

In return for tax dollars and spending money of migrating retirees, Hurst
says Lancaster offers the good life, not too far from Charlotte and
Columbia. "This is a good, family-type, religious environment where people
can come and feel secure and safe, and enjoy life and enjoy nature," he
said.

Bill Haas, sociology professor at UNC Asheville, expects other Carolinas
towns may follow Lancaster's leap into the retirement industry. "It's
better than tourism, because tourism is seasonal," he said. "It's better
than smokestack industry, because it doesn't pollute."

Most retirees who move to the Carolinas are in their 50s and 60s, and
unlike older retirees moving to Florida, they don't drain local tax dollars
in Medicare and elderly support services.

Each retiree household that moves into a community pumps an average of
$35,000 a year into the local economy and creates 1.5 jobs, says Haas.
In return, the over-65 crowd doesn't require a lot of police attention, and
they don't have children depleting local school resources.

Conventional wisdom says an elderly boom means a school bust. During the
1970s in Arizona, Sun City residents in the Peoria Unified School District
voted down 18 school bonds in a row. But other retiree-heavy school
districts have found if seniors volunteer in the schools, they'll usually
support school taxes. Hurst hopes to get Catawba Run residents into the
schools with tours and volunteer programs.

Will they come?

After 30 years in Los Angeles, Dave and June Cameron decided it was time
for a change. They wanted to be near their children and grandchildren in
Albany, N.Y., but didn't want the snow.

"We didn't look at Florida at all, because we didn't want to go somewhere
with blood pressure machines in every store and pink flamingos on the
lawns," says Dave Cameron.

They stumbled upon Savannah Lakes Village, then just a sales trailer in the
middle of a field in McCormick, S.C. Although it wasn't what they had in
mind, they fell in love with it.

At first, the transplant from urban California to rural South Carolina
caused a bit of culture shock. "We thought it was the most desolate place
we had ever seen in our lives," Dave Cameron says.

June Cameron puts it more gently: "I thought it was quaint. . . . They had
two stoplights, which was interesting."

But McCormick did have safety, a low cost of living, lots of recreation,
and a lack of crowds, earthquakes and hurricanes.

The planned community was another draw: "We didn't want to move someplace
where we would build a home and next door someone would put up a shack,"
says June Cameron.

The Camerons soon acclimated to rural life, even learned to thrive on it.
June Cameron volunteers at a local school. They buy groceries at the local
Food Lion and once a month drive 45 minutes to Augusta, Ga., for city
shopping. They play golf, go boating, socialize with friends they've made.
"We're all down here cramming for our finals," Dave Cameron says. "It's a
wonderful life."

Before wealthy retirees start pouring into Lancaster, Hurst, Boan and
Gardner have lots of work to do. First, they need to persuade the state to
secure the county a loan for at least $21 million. While that sounds risky,
and while development proposals often fail to materialize, that doesn't
diminish the excitement in Lancaster.

This week, Purcell and Forbes will visit Lancaster to work out a
comprehensive development agreement with county leaders, covering
everything from environmental concerns to building codes to special tax
districts.

Eldridge Emory, a County Council member for the past 19 years, has looked
over the colorful maps and the schematic drawings. He's listened to the
developers and Hurst promise golf courses, resort homes and millions of
dollars in tax revenue.

He said, "If it comes true, it's going to be the biggest thing that ever
happened to Lancaster County."