West Ashley
THE LOWDOWN
West Ashley is mainly a bedroom community for Charleston. It doesn’t have the charm of James Island or the perfectly landscaped areas like Mt Pleasant, but it does leave you close to everything in Charleston and without crushing your budget.
There is a lot of redevelopment planned for West Ashley, especially around the Bees Ferry area, where they hope to make it more of a self contained town. Whole Foods just opened a store close to Avondale and you know the good folks at Whole Foods do lots of research before opening their stores, so that’s a great boost for the area
There are essentially two versions of West Ashley. The part of WA inside I-526 is the old part, some really nice traditional brick ranch neighborhoods like Byrnes Down, Avondale, Northbridge Terrace. These are neighborhoods built in the 40s/50s/60s and have that feel to them which many love, but they are short on amenities such as pools.
Once you get out past I-526, you find bigger, newer subdivisions like Grand Oaks & Carolina Bay which have the pools, trails, tennis, basketball and gyms. They are more cookie cutter but with convenience of walking to your neighborhood pool and getting more space for your money. Your commute time goes up though once you get out past I-526.
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PRICE RANGE
Single Family Homes : Median Price $311,000
Condos & Townhomes : Median Price $182,000
PROS
Whole Foods - If Whole Foods move to any area, you know it’s a good sign.
There’s a lot of infrastructural development in the plans for West Ashley. The mayor is a fan of the area and putting a focus on it.
Some very affordable but nice large subdivisions with all the amenities you could want.
CONS
Savannah Highway is not the prettiest of roads, lots of car dealerships.
Most of the newer neighborhoods are further out in WA past 526 which makes for a longer commute downtown.
I-526 will likely be extended through some neighborhoods in WA.
AREA FAVORITES
Avondale - Small but cool area of WA, it’s just five minutes from downtown but a lot more local and less expensive for your dining/nightlife.
There are some beautiful plantations close by up Highway 61.
It’s not trendy and it absolutely feels like a Holiday Inn, but the view from the top of the round Holiday Inn is hard to beat at sunset
COMMUTE TIMES
Airport/Boeing : 20 minutes
Downtown Charleston/MUSC : 10-25 minutes
Closest Beach : 30 minutes to Folly beach
SHOPPING
West Ashley has the underperforming, chronically vacant Citadel Mall as its main mall. There are plans to do a big renovation on it, we’ll see how soon that happens. There are smaller shopping plazas and WA has all the big box stores you can think of. If you’re shopping for a car, just drive down Savannah Highway and you’ll have a mile of car dealerships to choose from.
There is a small but nice farmers market at Ackerman Park on Wednesdays.
BEACHES
Folly is your closest, but Sullivans Island may not be much further away depending where you are in WA. Kiawah’s Beachwalker Park is an option too.
