Mt Pleasant

THE LOWDOWN

Mt Pleasant is just over the Ravenel Bridge from Downtown Charleston. It’s a higher end, very well planned and maintained part of Charleston, so it’s popular among the company executives and other middle upper class folk.

It’s the most requested area for newcomers to Charleston, lifestyle is hard to beat, but it’s not cheap.

The schools are very highly rated in MtP that make it appealing to those with children. Wando High School is more like a college campus than a high school.

Mt Pleasant can be divided into Upper and Lower Mt Pleasant, with the Isle of Palms Connector being the dividing point.

Lower Mt Pleasant is older neighborhoods mostly mixed with some smaller planned subdivisions. The Old Village area is one of the nicest parts of Charleston, it’s beautiful driving through there. Shem Creek and its restaurants are in this part of town. It’s very close to downtown and Sullivans Island too, you can be in either in ten minutes, so that is great but keeps demand and prices very high too.

Whole Foods & Trader Joes are here. That tells you a lot about the area

Upper Mt Pleasant has more of the large scale amenity filled subdivisions. It’s further from downtown though but you do get more house for your money up here too. When I moved here first twenty years ago, this was the boonies, but now upper Mt Pleasant is self contained and has everything you’d need within its boundaries.

Wando HS is up here, there’s a hospital, lots of recreational fields. Carolina Park is the huge newer subdivision in this area. If you want land in Mt Pleasant, the gated golf course community of Dunes West is one of the few neighborhoods with 1-2 acre lots.

Lots of sports facilities for kids, excellent ones too.

I’ve owned many rentals houses in Mt Pleasant over the years and never had a single day of vacancy on any of them, that’s how in demand the area is.

PRICE RANGE

Single Family Homes : $600,000+

Condos & Townhomes : $400,000+

PROS

  • It’s the go to place in Charleston if you can afford it.

  • If you have kids, facilities are excellent for them.

  • It’s just nice, driving around, it’s clean & well kept/landscaped

  • You have your choice of beaches.

  • Good access to both downtown quickly or in the North area where a lot of industry is

  • Lots of golf courses

CONS

  • Traffic across the Ravenel bridge can be heavy at peak times and Highway 17 is heavy, but moves in general

  • House prices are high

AREA FAVORITES

Happy hour at Shem Creek

The farmers market on Tuesday afternoon

Walking the pier at waterfront park

COMMUTE TIMES

Mt Pleasant itself is quite big, so there’s a range.

Airport/Boeing : 20-30 minutes

Downtown Charleston/MUSC : 15-35 minutes

Closest Beach : 10 minutes to either Sullivans Island or Isle of Palms

SHOPPING

Mt Pleasant has every shop you could want. Trader Joes & Whole Foods are here. Target/Walmart and all the big chains are in MtP.

Mt Pleasant Towne Center & The Market at Oakland are two of the bigger shopping centers

BEACHES

Isle of Palms : If you’re in north Mt Pleasant, this is the closest one for you.

Sullivans Island : This is my favorite beach in the area. I think it’s more of a locals beach than IOP because there are fewer vacation rentals here. It’s also one of the top 50 most expensive zip codes in the US.

Come to station 28.5 and you might see me kitesurfing !