CHARLESTON — Two small business owners have joined together to purchase and revive the former Carolina Rod and Gun property on Savannah Highway that was previously sought by Parker’s Kitchen.
Arthur Lucas, owner of Freehouse Brewery, and David Miles, founder and former owner of LimRic Plumbing, Heating and Air, purchased a combined four parcels at 1319 Highway 17 for $2.73 million on Feb. 5, Charles Carmody, senior vice president with the commercial real estate firm CBRE, confirmed with The Post and Courier.
Carmody represented the seller, 1319 Savannah Highway LLC, which took ownership in 2016 of the property he calls “institutional” to West Ashley.
Lucas, a resident of the neighborhood up until recently, said he’s excited to be able to come back every day where he and Miles plan to open a brewpub and cafe in the vacant Carolina Rod and Gun property.
The 10,858-square-foot spot at the corner of Parkwood Estates Drive also includes the long-term Charleston Bicycle Co., which will continue to operate, and two brick buildings next door built in the 1950s and deemed historic by the city.
Charleston Community Acupuncture will remain in the building at 1307 Savannah Highway, while Lucas said the second at 545 Parkwood Estates Drice — previously occupied by Renasant Mortgage Lending — will be put up for lease to a similar “low-impact” business.
While Lucas operates a larger brewery in North Charleston that’s more a destination, he said he’ll model the West Ashley location after his smaller brewpub in Walhalla that operates as a stop-and-go. Think grabbing a beer after a bike ride on The West Ashley Greenway, which runs behind the property, New York pizza by the slice, and even a wine program.
“We’ll have a small brewery just to brew things for consumption there and we’ll augment it with wider offerings from our brewery in North Charleston,” Lucas said.
The bar will have a “neighborhood vibe” and be family friendly, focused more on daytime sales, Miles added.
He and Lucas are still on the hunt for a cafe business to join them in the Carolina Rod and Gun building. The two businesses will divide the more than 5,200 square feet of space in hopes of a fall opening.
“What we’ll be recruiting is an all-day coffee shop, kind of a 7 (a.m.) to 3 (p.m.) mode, then a tap room from about 2 to 9 (p.m.),” Miles said. “So nothing that will be open until midnight.”
A rendering of the updates to The Greenway, the new name for the former Carolina Rod and Gun parcel on Savannah Highway that was sold for $2.7 million on Feb. 5, 2026.
Until last fall, Savannah-based Parker’s Kitchen had been eyeing the property but pulled out following pushback from the community and the unlikely chance the city would approve demolishing the two historic buildings.
“We had it under contract with Parker’s for $3.85 million,” Carmody said.
The deal fell apart from there, and the listing went back on the market Sept. 18 for a “significant price reduction” of $3.49 million, Carmody previously said.
Lucas said he and Miles were introduced by Steve Brown, owner of the Charleston Bicycle Co., after the property returned to market. They immediately saw “eye to eye on this vision of revitalizing the building,” Lucas said. “We decided to partner and really bring it back to life as opposed to tearing it down and making it a gas station.”
Right now in West Ashley, Lucas said there’s not enough revitalization happening and he believes the property will be a good long-term investment. Plans as of now are to clean up the property, to be called The Greenway for its proximity to the popular pedestrian and bike path, and make it look like a more cohesive unit. Parking will remain the same.
“A lot of big money comes in and says, ‘Hey, we can make money in five years in Charleston,’ because they look at their spreadsheets, right?” he said. “…We never brought out a spreadsheet between us. We looked at our common vision, which is to revitalize this place and make it look beautiful. That’s why we’re doing it, because we love it.”
date: 2026-02-10 11:04:00
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