Where Experience Meets the Road
It's a case of the right man for the job at the right time. That's certainly what the Board of Directors of the troubled Southern Connector is counting on.
Greenville business leader William L. Carpenter, former chief at JE Sirrine, has stepped in to become Chairman of the Southern Connector. Described by his peers as "tough, professional and fair," Bill Carpenter has a long history with the Southern Connector, which is why he says he agreed to assume the Chairmanship. "I've been on the Board since its inception, it seemed logical to me to establish a continuity of leadership."
Carpenter also has a long history in Greenville, although he chuckles, "I moved here when I was just four weeks old, and I'm still not considered a native."
"What I know about Bill Carpenter, I am both enthusiastic and supportive of his stepping into this role. He's been in positions of leadership, he's well known, very capable and has all the things it takes to be an effective leader," says Jerry Howard, of the Greenville Area Development Corporation.
Carpenter is nothing if not highly qualified for the job. In addition to his ten-plus years on the existing board, "I was in engineering for 50 years, I had a company that designed transportation systems, we located industries, mills, created jobs, so I've been in this business and know it well," he says.
Carpenter will have no shortage of challenges before him.
The Southern Connector has never been without its critics. Opened in 2001, in a rare public/private partnership, the 17-mile stretch of road has never lived up to its projected revenues, for several important reasons. Timing, they say, is everything. And the planners of the Southern Connector were perhaps ahead of their time and design by about ten or 15 years. Projected growth and development of the southern parts of Greenville County were made during the heady '90s when creative financing and economic development were at their peak. A toll road, the Southern Connector was supposed to grant access to and channel development to the southern part of Greenville County, establishing it as a light industrial warehouse hub along the Charlotte-Atlanta corridor. It was also designed specifically in anticipation of projected commercial and residential development in the southern part of Greenville County.
That projected development hasn't happened yet.
"We had three big setbacks," says Carpenter. "We have gone through two recessions since 2001, development halted, and we had 9-11, but our problems are under control now," he insists.
The recent economic downturn also played a role in forcing the Southern Connector entity to have its debt cleared through a bankruptcy court, causing Bill Carpenter to embrace his responsibility and the plans for the Connector with renewed energy and enthusiasm for promoting the roadway. "We can pay our operating expenses now, the state can begin to recover maintenance fees."
He goes on to say now that the immediate financial issues have been resolved. "I see our challenge on a greater scale, (that is) the problems we have with traffic in Greenville County, along the I-85 corridor. I-85 is, to me, probably the most dangerous stretch of road in South Carolina."
According to Carpenter, "The answer is not to widen I-85 further and then create still more traffic on 85 — the challenge is to get traffic off 85."
Carpenter says eventually South Carolina will have no choice but to establish other toll roads like the Southern Connector. "There simply is no other source of revenue for transportation improvements," he says. "We've got to get over that we get no money from the state — the only answer is addition of toll roads."
Carpenter sees his role as "to work with economic development officials in the area to try to come up with a plan to expand our traffic (on the Southern Connector)."
Carpenter is going to meet the obstacles head on, turning around the "road to nowhere," as the Connector has been dubbed in the past, because, although it is deemed overcrowded, I-85 is still the most direct route through the greater Greenville area.
But that IS the past, says Carpenter, and now he's going full steam ahead. Carpenter is not alone in his optimism.
Jerry Howard, head of the GADC, says he too is looking ahead to the big picture and future impact the Southern Connector will have. "The Southern Connector is vital and extremely important to the GADC," says Howard. "We recently did a study and found that development is going to be almost exclusively in the southern part of the county. There is lots of infrastructure, large tracts of land, appropriate zoning, and easy access to 85. Major development gravitates toward access."
Carpenter says he plans to stay on as Board Chairman "for a couple of years, then someone else can step in to take over."
By then Bill Carpenter hopes, that "someone else" will have a much smoother road ahead.