New 'Circle to Circle' committee to study Sea Pines to Coligny corridor

By Zach Murdock via The Island Packet 

Pope Avenue, Hilton Head 

The two traffic circles at the heart of Hilton Head Island and the busy stretch of Pope Avenue between them will get some extra attention this year as part of a new town study.

The study will review existing traffic challenges in that area, its current redevelopment needs and future development plans along the corridor, including the proposed University of South Carolina Beaufort hospitality campus on Office Park Road, according to town leaders and documents.

Next week, the town's Planning Commission will appoint a "Circle to Circle" committee of a dozen citizens and town officials to lead the study, identify a 20-year plan for the area and host public hearings on their findings later this year.

The idea for the study sprouted from an effort by more than a dozen south-island residents to form such a committee and after several meetings about Coligny area improvements last year, said Tom Sharp, a Sea Pines resident who helped form the original group and will serve on the town committee.

Those residents saw one big problem: The conversations about south-end traffic, Sea Pines Circle and Coligny area improvements were all happening separately, said Sharp, a former commissioner of the Indiana Department of Transportation.

"The whole crux is whatever happens in the Coligny district has to move through Sea Pines Circle from a traffic standpoint," he said. "Unless you decide what should happen in Coligny, you can't test the robustness of Sea Pines circle."

"It's just time to take everything together because we seem to have had a tendency in the past to take one piece while disregarding the influence the other might have," he added.

The committee will follow through on new Mayor David Bennett's campaign promise to craft a long-term development plan the Coligny area.

"That area is an area where the town is making a very large capital investment in the coming years," Bennett said. "It's an area that's a concern today with respect to traffic around the Sea Pines Circle."

Bennett hosted many of the meetings about Coligny improvements as leader of the Planning Commission last spring before master planning became a major tenet of his successful run for mayor in November.

"It seemed like a good area to start with," Bennett said last week. "The entire island needs a similar look, and my hope would be to continue" with similar efforts in each of the town's wards.

The committee does not yet have a meeting schedule, but its membership will include citizen leaders such as Sharp, two Planning Commission members and a Town Council liaison, according to town documents. Members also will work closely with town engineers and planners, Sharp added.

"Hopefully we can sharpen our focus, put it together and start talking to people about it," Sharp said. "It has potential to be a joyous time. There will be a lot of ruckus and what have you, but if we focus on facts and not emotion, I think we might get there."