CHAPIN, S.C. — Sitting at the heart of the I-26 interchange project, residents in Chapin are no strangers to construction But this community is also seeing additional construction as several other projects are popping up across the town.
"We have several projects from a commercial standpoint that are under consideration," Nicholle Burroughs, the director for economic development in Chapin, said. "Those are all conceptual in nature for what we have on the board and we expect, in the next several months, construction to begin on a new storage building off Columbia Avenue."
Not only new storage is coming but also new homes as the Boykin Hill community has started development in the area.
"That will be around 190 homes or so," Burroughs said. "Our market is one that is in high demand. What our real estate agents are seeing is that a minute the house comes on the market, they are being sold within a matter of days."
With high demand for homes comes a different look for the area. John Wright has lived here since 1992 and said it's changed significantly.
"Small town community which that's what it used to be but it's soon not to be," he said.
Changes are also coming to the unincorporated areas near Chapin as well.
District 6 Lexington County Councilmember Charlene Wessinger said a smokehouse restaurant is coming to the community alongside the completion of thousands of homes that we're submitted through building permits prior to the county's building moratorium ordinance.
"The Chapin unincorporated area still has about 2,000 homes that have been permitted and submitted to build," Wessinger said. "We have a lot of residents that have come into the area but there aren't a lot of businesses to support that residential growth."
"We said we're going to do smartly and manage that growth the best we can," she added.
