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A major drop in demand for housing and the weakened economy caused the developer of Palmetto Bluff and Oldfield to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in mid-June.
Crescent Resources, a joint venture between Duke Energy and Morgan Stanley Real Estate Funds, is hoping residents of the two Bluffton area communities will not notice any changes while the company is reorganized, spokesman Chuck Burgess said.
“The intention is this will have little to no impact on the communities the company is working with,” Burgess said.
Palmetto Bluff, the sprawling and picturesque community on 20,000 acres on the edge of the May River, remains one of the “flagship properties” of the company, Burgess said. Houses there sell for between $300,000 and $4.5 million, according to its Web site.
With the national recession, the decline in demand for new home construction has been hurting prices over the past eight to 12 months. Even the speedy pace of construction in Beaufort County, the state’s fastest growing county, began to slow over the past two years. “Like everyone in the real estate industry, the company has been struggling to manage through this process,” he said. “This is certainly not a liquidation.”
Oldfield, with an entrance on S.C. 170, is located on 860 acres on the banks of the Okatie River.
