Beaufort County Council directs staff to pursue revised SIB agreement while keeping fallback to replace Mackay Creek span

Beaufort County Council voted 8‑3 on Tuesday to direct county staff to prepare amended agreement language and resubmit a revised proposal to the State Infrastructure Bank (SIB) while retaining a fallback plan to replace the Mackay Creek eastbound span on U.S. 278.

The action follows a presentation by county staff detailing six options developed with the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT), and a debrief after the SIB’s unanimous decision to reject the county’s revised joint proposal with the Town of Hilton Head.

County presenter Mike Moore summarized the SIB debrief: “we did get a unanimous decision from the CIB to reject the proposal,” and said the board cited several concerns, including a revised funding sequence that conflicted with the intergovernmental agreement (IGA), the town’s contribution as a land dedication rather than cash, and an absence of a detailed construction timeline. Moore said the SIB also viewed the county as not having clearly outlined a strategy for covering cost overruns.

County engineer Jared Fralix walked council through the technical options the county and DOT presented in February. He said the three‑lane “lifeline” option was the only scheme that originally fit within roughly $300 million available at that time, but that DOT later updated a cost estimate for a like‑for‑like two‑lane…