Estimated $5 million more needed to relocate St. James Baptist Church, Cherry Hill School
Sixteen years later — following the plans to expand Hilton Head Airport’s runway and the completion of the runway itself — the historic St. James Baptist Church is still millions short of the funds needed to relocate out of the runway protection zone.
Sen. Tom Davis, R-Beaufort, allocated $4 million in this year’s state budget to aid in the construction of a new church and fellowship hall, as well as the relocation of the Cherry Hill School. The project, which has been in the works since 2018 when the congregation, county and town of Hilton Head first collaborated to relocate the church, is estimated to cost between $8 to $10 million, according to Jared Fralix, the assistant county administrator for Beaufort County and lead for the project.
In 2018, the airport completed a 700-foot runway extension, enabling larger planes to land but also extending the federally mandated runway protection zone over both the St. James Church and Cherry Hill School.
St. James Church is the oldest continuously operating cultural institution in Mitchelville, the north-end village established for freed slaves in 1886. Built in 1937, the Cherry Hill School is the last remaining schoolhouse constructed solely for African American children on the island.
The congregation still meets in the church despite Federal Aviation Administration recommendations that all buildings in the protection zone should be empty. Herbert Ford, the church’s Board of Trustees chairman and a congregation member, said the church has nowhere else to go until the county provides a new sanctuary.
There is no required timeline for relocation unless the airport proposes a land-use change, according to a FAA statement.
Fralix and his team of engineers and design professionals are working to create a conceptual planning and cost estimate guide to present to both the town and county council where they will then dictate the project schedule and additional funding needed, he said.
As of the beginning stages planning process, Fralix said the relocation of the three facilities will be on town-owned land in Union Cemetery on Union Cemetery Road.
Of the estimated $8 to $10 million needed for the relocation and construction, the state has provided almost $5 million through earmarks from this year and last year, Fralix said. The county and town have also provided $150,000 each, bringing the total to a little over $5 million dollars, he added.
Fralix is working to develop plans to submit to the FAA for the agency to be a stakeholder in the project, he said, to bring additional funding for the construction and relocation. He noted however that the FAA wouldn’t be able to fund all of the elements or the remaining gap.
Last fall, Fralix had a meeting with all of the stakeholders — FAA, airport, county and town of Hilton Head — to move the project forward, he said.
“It’s a priority,” he said. “There’s more momentum that’s been made over the last nine or 10 months than what’s been made over the last several years, and so we hope to build off that in the coming months.”
