Privately held Charleston bank unveils new corporate headquarters

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Beacon Community Bank, a privately held community bank founded in Charleston, has opened its new two-story headquarters and branch at 2347 Highway 17 North in Mount Pleasant.

This is the sixth branch opening in six years in the Charleston tri-county area for the financial institution, according to a news release.

“This is the culmination of a dream for the bank to have our headquarters right here in Mount Pleasant,” said Tommy Baker, chairman of the board of Beacon Community Bank, in the release. “We are so proud to have our corporate home in the heart of the six and seven mile communities and to be welcomed with open arms by local community leaders, right here in the town where I was born and raised. We’ve spent several years preparing for this moment, and our board members and employees couldn’t be more excited.”

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Beacon Community Bank has been rapidly expanding over the past six years, growing its Lowcountry footprint to serve clients throughout the area, the release stated. In January 2018, Beacon opened its first branch in downtown Charleston on East Bay Street. A second branch followed in Mount Pleasant on Houston Northcutt in May 2019. A Daniel Island branch opened in April 2021, followed by the Mount Pleasant Ben Sawyer Boulevard branch in September 2022 and the bank’s fifth branch on International Boulevard in North Charleston in February 2023.

“As a kid in Mount Pleasant, I could have never dreamed of being part of an endeavor that would bring a local community bank headquarters to Mount Pleasant,” said Baker in the release. “And we plan to keep on growing, bringing new branch locations and resources to local businesses and residents over the many years to come.”

The bank’s new headquarters and branch totals approximately 11,000 square feet of space and includes bright, modern, open spaces for branch operations, corporate offices, and an office for 501(c)3 non-profit organization Community Action Group for Encouragement (C.A.G.E.) to utilize for community needs, according to the release.

Contractors on the project included Hill Construction, Goff D'Antonio Associates and Earthsource Engineering.

On the property, construction will soon begin on Grassroots Legacy Park, a new attraction that Beacon is dedicating to the community, the release stated. The park is adjacent to the bank’s headquarters and will contain a pavilion with picnic tables, a sweetgrass prairie that can be harvested for basket weaving, and a commemorative wall with plaques listing the surnames of the founding families that settled the six and seven mile community.

“We met with community leaders and asked them how we could thoughtfully contribute to the community,” said Baker. “The shared vision for this commemorative park began at that meeting, and we see this space as a purposeful place for the community to gather and harvest sweetgrass for many generations to come. This land is an important part of our Lowcountry heritage, and we celebrate that.”

With over 300 shareholders and an 18-member board of Charleston’s most distinguished leaders and business owners, Beacon was the first community bank to form in South Carolina in nearly a decade when it was founded in 2018.