NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) — Demolition will soon start at the former WestRock paper mill site in North Charleston as the South Carolina Port Authority moves forward with plans to expand its capacity.

Port leaders said demolition is expected to begin by mid to late July.

“Most of the buildings are clean as far as hazardous materials in them, but there is a lot of asbestos and other materials out there that we have to remediate for so that will be the first step they’ll come in and they’ll do a lot of work behind the scenes,” Butch Weber, vice president of engineering and facilities for the South Carolina Port Authority, said.

Weber said clearing the 280-acre industrial waterfront property, adjacent to North Charleston Terminal, will be a massive task.

“Then it will take some time to sort the debris and determine what they’re going to scrap, what they’re going to salvage,” Weber said.

Long-term expansion plans

The expansion will allow the terminal’s capacity to handle 5 million containers and create 5,000 feet of linear berth space for container ships and around 400 acres of terminal space for cargo. Leaders said that the timeline is long-term, two to three decades out.

In the next few years, the site will be prepared and used for roll-on, roll-off cargo, including vehicles such as BMW, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz.

“Also, on the North Charleston terminal itself, the existing footprint, we are going to make some modifications to that terminal, improving some of the container stacking areas and also improving some of the area for finish vehicle parking,” Weber said.

Nearly 14,600 vehicles crossed the docks in May, up 12% compared to last May.

At a board meeting, President and CEO Micah Mallace addressed recent cuts made for efficiency due to a market downturn. Despite the challenges, Mallace expressed an optimistic outlook for future expansion.

“We also recognize that the stakeholders in the community are affected in the same way and some of the decisions we make impact them, and so we make those decisions with a lot of care and concern with an eye towards how we offset the downturn in the market, and so really the focus going forward is growth,” Mallace said.

Weber said after the demolition process is complete, the port expects to prepare the terminal for roll-on/roll-off operations to begin in 2027 and be complete in 2028.

Week 10 of the 2026 college football campaign sees the Texas A&M Aggies in the second game of a three-week road trip across the Southeast, this time heading to Columbia, South Carolina for a match with Shane Beamer and the Gamecocks.

The last time the two teams met, it was a clash between an undefeated Aggies team and a Gamecocks squad that had absolutely nothing to lose, and resulted in high-running emotions, questions as to whether or not Marcel Reed deserved his Heisman Trophy hype, and even an odd interaction between a South Carolina player and a state trooper that was working the sidelines of the game.

Oh, and also the greatest football comeback in Texas A&M program history.

The Great Comeback at Kyle Field

The Aggies already had revenge fresh on their minds from the 2024 meeting between the two teams, which saw the Gamecocks hand the Ags an embarrassing 44-20 loss to halt their seven-game winning streak and serve as the catalyst for a downward spiral for A&M that resulted in them losing two of their next three games, including a four-overtime thriller against Auburn and a heartbreaking finale loss at home against the Texas Longhorns.

And the first half of the 2025 game looked like a rinse and repeat of that fateful November night in Columbia, except this time, it was in front of a jam-packed Kyle Field crowd.

South Carolina wasted no time pouring it on the Aggies, as a 17-3 first quarter score had Shane Beamer beaming with delight during an interview shortly before the second quarter.

Two field goals and an 80-yard touchdown pass from quarterback LaNorris Sellers to Nyck Harbor, and the confidence of the 12th Man in the team was crumbling, and an undefeated Aggie team was suddenly on the ropes against one of the more underperforming teams in the conference.

Unfortunately for Beamer and the Gamecocks, football has two halves in it, and very few teams perform better in the second half of a contest than the Texas A&M Aggies.

Marcel Reed wasted no time to start the second quarter, only needing three-and-a-half minutes to find Izaiah Williams down the sideline for a 27-yard touchdown, slowly bringing life back into the largest football stadium in the state, life that was temporarily zapped when Ashton Bethel-Roman dropped a walk-in touchdown pass, but was restored as ABR made a circus-like catch to come down with the ball in the end zone for a 39-yard score.

Bethel-Roman would add to his highlight reel with a 76-yard catch to bring the ball all the way to South Carolina’s 14-yard line, where Reed connected with tight end Nate Boerkircher for a touchdown, the score going from 30-3 to 30-24 in the span of a quarter.

After A&M forced a punt from the Gamecocks, they would then embark on a 10-play, 98-yard drive that culminated in a two-yard punch-in from EJ Smith, completing A&M’s comeback and giving them their first lead of the afternoon.

However, there were still nearly 11 minutes left in the game, and a fumble from running back Jamarion Morrow with three minutes to go did not do the College Station crowd any favors.

Thankfully for the Aggies, they had a dynamic duo of defensive linemen in Tyler Onyedim and Cashius Howell, who each recorded sacks on the ensuing drive, and Howell chased Sellers out of bounds on 4th & 16 to force a turnover on downs, sealing the game, keeping the Aggies undefeated, and capping off the greatest comeback in the history of Texas A&M football.

The Aggies and Gamecocks meet again in Columbia on November 7, where A&M has not won since serving up a 48-3 pummeling of South Carolina back in 2020.

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