empty – Building a better South

Santee Outlets used to be a thriving outlet village in the small town of Santee, S.C., along Interstate 95 in the middle of a real dull drive between Savannah, Ga., and Florence, S.C. Now, however, the facility — once home to about four dozen stores — houses an antiques store and a sheriff’s department substation. A parking lot that could fit hundreds of cars is empty with weeds and broken glass as its only occupants.

While small shops and fast-food restaurants thrive at the Santee exit, small businesses like those in the outlet took a big hit in the Great Recession. Santee, home to about 750 people, is in the eastern part of Orangeburg County near Lake Marion. Orangeburg County is home to more than 91,000 people, two thirds of whom are black. The county has a poverty rate of 24.5 percent.

QuickFacts about Orangeburg County from the U.S. Census.
More about Orangeburg via Wikipedia.

For every business that is open on West Main Street in the Pee Dee town of Timmonsville, S.C., some six businesses are shuttered, including those pictured above. Open on the lonely street are a church, town hall, furniture shop, small chain general store and a bank. But there were 18 closed businesses along three blocks of the city’s hub street last month.

Fortunately for the community, Honda Motor Company located a facility several years back that builds all-terrain vehicles and personal watercrafts nearby, which helped employment levels. Still, per capita income for the town was $11,714 in 2000. In 2010, the town had 2,315 people. Ten years later, it had grown by five people.

Timmonsville’s poverty rate was 26.6 percent in 2000, much higher than its home county, Florence, which had 19.4 percent poverty in 2010. Florence, just a few miles away from Timmonsville, is the largest city in the Pee Dee with 37,498 people in 2012. Florence County had 137,948 people, according to a 2012 estimate.

More on Timmonsville from Wikipedia.
QuickFacts about Florence County and the City of Florence.

Tag: empty

Deserted, Santee, S.C.

West Main Street, Timmonsville, S.C.