The sights and sounds of progress were readily apparent on a recent bright, hot summer morning in the Red Bank area of Lexington County.
Construction workers in helmets and bright shirts with tool belts dangling from their hips were perched on roofs in burgeoning subdivisions such as Ashton Lakes off YMCA Road, just a short drive from Red Bank Elementary, or at the Copper Crest neighborhood off Old Orangeburg Road. The kinds of places where hundreds of new homes filled — or soon to be filled — with families are lined up in neat, meticulously planned rows, like a modern version of the American suburban idyllic codified in early Steven Spielberg movies.
Crews were hard at work building a new Lowes Foods grocery store at Platt Springs Crossing, a sprawling, nearly 60-acre development that is rising from the dirt along Platt Springs Road not far from South Lake Drive. The $65 million mixed use development is perhaps the most visible avatar of the new Red Bank, bringing with it restaurants and retail, plus 142 planned new townhomes. Already, a host of national restaurants — Whataburger, Chipotle, Panda Express, etc. — have opened on the site, with more on the way…