Four years after its bid for the Republic Tract was rejected, Mount Pleasant has a deal to buy most of it.

Town Council on Oct. 13 approved a lawsuit settlement under which the town will buy about 129 acres of the roughly 185-acre property along Highway 41 and the Wando River for $28.5 million, the town said. The land, which has more than two miles of waterfront, will be restricted to a passive public park through a deed restriction, a conservation easement or both.

The owner will keep about 56.25 acres, which will be annexed into Mount Pleasant and limited to no more than 95 single-family homes, according to the town.

The purchase is subject to a 90-day due diligence period and other closing requirements. Closing could occur as early as April 2027, the town said. Its announcement did not say how the town would pay for the land.

What the town says it avoided

The settlement resolves a lawsuit in which the owner sought a court ruling on sewer service, the town said. If the tract had received sewer service while staying in unincorporated Charleston County, it would have been entitled to up to 16 housing units per acre, or as many as 1,600 units, according to the town. Annexed under town zoning, it would have been entitled to three units per acre, or more than 300.

“It reduces the potential development on that land by 95% if it stayed in the county, and about 65 to 70% if it were to come into the town,” Council member Daniel Brownstein told Live 5 News.

Mayor Pro Tem Howard Chapman said the housing limit was the most important benefit. “In negotiations with Highland, they agreed to do only 95 homes, which is a great benefit to our community,” he told the station.

The town and the owner will share the cost of a public access road from Highway 41 to serve both the park and the homes, according to the town. Chapman told Live 5 the town expects to finish its due diligence by the end of the year.

A long dispute

The tract is named for Republic Contracting Corp., a Columbia-based construction company the Deierlein family started in 1956, The Post and Courier reported. The company specialized in bridge work and large marine projects and opened a barge maintenance terminal on the Wando property in the early 1980s, according to the newspaper.

Mount Pleasant tried to buy the land when it went on the market in 2022, but its $20.8 million bid was rejected as too low, the Post and Courier reported. In 2023, the owners sued to challenge a policy that requires properties to annex into the town before getting water and sewer service, in a case that pitted them against the town, Mount Pleasant Waterworks and Charleston County. They alleged that a later $41 million offer fell through because of the annexation requirement, according to the newspaper.

The owners argued the utility had to provide service anyway, partly because of a disputed 1989 merger agreement between Mount Pleasant Waterworks and the Bulls Bay Rural Community Water District, the Post and Courier reported in 2025. Town Administrator Eric DeMoura had estimated that as many as 1,600 homes could be built on the land under county rules.

A new owner steps in

On March 27, an affiliate of Houston-based Highland Resources bought the tract for $37.5 million, the Post and Courier reported. Charleston County property records list the same price.

Highland took the Deierlein family’s place in the lawsuit and agreed to drop several claims seeking financial damages from the town, according to the newspaper. Highland broke ground in 2025 on Magnolia Landing, a $2 billion, 200-acre mixed-use project between King Street Extension and the Ashley River on the Charleston peninsula, the Post and Courier reported.

At the time of the purchase, Highland said in a statement that “no development plans have been determined” for the tract, according to the newspaper.

In its Oct. 13 announcement, the town thanked Highland “for working in good faith to reach this settlement” and credited Mount Pleasant Waterworks for its partnership through a joint defense agreement over the past four years.

Traffic on Highway 41

Traffic was part of the town’s case for keeping the land open. Charleston County plans to spend $245 million to widen two-lane Highway 41, the Post and Courier reported in March.

“There’s already enough traffic on 41, so to be able to preserve that land would have been a true asset,” Councilman John Iacofano told the newspaper then, adding that he did not think the town would end up owning it.

The town said details on park planning and public access will be shared as the purchase moves forward.