CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr., the man who has served as Charleston mayor longer than any other in the city’s almost 350-year history, plans to be working hard, not reflecting, during his final year in office.
“I expect to be working right up until I turn the lights off and leave this building the night before I leave office,” Joseph P. Riley Jr. said during a recent interview with The Associated Press in the office where, for almost 40 years, he had led the city he loves.
“This is not a year of reflection,” added Riley, whose 10th and final term ends in January 2016. “This will be the opposite of a victory lap. This will be as if I am in a race and running the last leg and running to win and get the best time.”
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Riley consults a yellow legal pad where he has jotted down almost three dozen projects, large and small, that the city is working on. The list fills a page, and a half and the work would wear out a mayor half his age.
“I can’t even picture how I’m going to have time to clean this office out before I leave,” said Riley, 71, who has led Charleston through an urban renaissance that has made it a center for the arts and a world-renowned tourist destination.
Riley generally gets to his office at 8 every morning and works at least through 6 each evening. With time running out, he says, he will probably put in longer hours.
“Actually, my staff gives me an update every day. Right now I have only 393 days left,” he said.
A sampling of Riley’s agenda for his last year in office:
Performing Arts Center
- Charleston opens a new $142 million performing arts center, the most expensive municipal project in city history, in 2015. The Gaillard Center was to have opened in time for next spring’s Spoleto Festival USA, but completion has been delayed until summer.
International African American Museum
- Conceptual designs for the building and its exhibits are expected to be completed during the coming year. The goal is to begin construction in early 2016 on the $75 million museum on the site where tens of thousands of enslaved Africans first set foot in North America.
Cruise Terminal
- Riley said he will continue working with the South Carolina Ports Authority to get permits for a new $35 million passenger cruise terminal on the city’s waterfront. The project has been tied up in the courts, but Riley is confident the issues will be resolved.
Urban Design
- The city will develop updated design guidelines for construction of larger buildings on the Charleston peninsula. The city’s Board of Architectural Review dates to the early 1930s. “We have had some controversy in recent years,” Riley said. “Quite honestly, we have seen proposed designs that were not remarkable.”
Public Safety
- The city will move forward with its plan to spend $60 million for public safety building projects during the next 20 years. The project includes four fire stations in the Historic District that need hurricane and earthquake upgrades. Under preservation rules, the historic buildings can’t be torn down and must be renovated.
Interstate 526
- Riley said the city will continue to push for building Interstate 526 through Charleston’s western suburbs. The plan calls for a parkway-type road across Johns and James Island, not a high-speed, limited access interstate.
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