HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. — St. James Baptist Church, a Gullah congregation on Hilton Head Island founded in 1886, will break ground on its new campus Saturday, Oct. 24. The 10 a.m. ceremony takes place on the new site at 9 Union Cemetery Road, and the public is welcome to attend.
Admission is free. The congregation is hosting jointly with the town government and Beaufort County, and organizers want an RSVP no later than Oct. 20 sent to [email protected].
The move takes the church and the historic Cherry Hill School off Dillon Road, where both sit inside the runway protection zone at Hilton Head Island Airport. Federal aviation guidance treats churches and schools in those zones as incompatible uses and encourages airports to relocate them.
The new site covers about 4.67 acres in the Grassland Historic Neighborhood, next to Union Cemetery. Town Council voted in June to buy roughly 1.70 acres from the church, including the current church and school parcels, and to hand the new land to Beaufort County, then gave the ordinances final approval July 14. A long-term lease lets the congregation keep worshipping in its current building until the new campus is finished.
