Note to readers:  While we applaud South Street Partners enhanced transparency provided in their Saturday night email to the PB community on the Village Green controversy, please know that there is much more to this topic of which all PB property owners should be aware.  We address these below.  Also, please know that in our effort to provide you with accurate information, on Friday we reviewed –consistent with prior practice—a draft of this email with PB’s Chief Operating Officer.  

Dear PBNA Members,

This newsletter touches on two topics: the Village Green in Wilson Village and the 2025 PBNA board.

Wilson’s Village Green

The use of the Village Green for weddings continues to be a source of irritation for many PB property owners for at least two reasons: 

• First, while the number of weddings has decreased slightly, the scale and duration of the events has grown dramatically, causing a myriad of lifestyle, access, and safety concerns.  This is the subject of much chatter, both within our Palmetto Bluff community and on social media.  In addition to the nuisance and safety concerns, many believe that property owners are not appropriately compensated for our inability to use and enjoy our “downtown” and marque park in a peaceful and orderly manner for significant amounts of time.  A further concern is that such events (and construction/tear down) are not sufficiently monitored, resulting in damage to our iconic live oaks and the Wilson Mansion ruins.

• Second, the Village Green is effectively “owned” by us, the property owners.  The Green is part of our common area property (including roads, bridges, etc.) that is directly owned by the PB Preservation Trust, LLC (our POA), and as such, we (via the POA) are reimbursed when the Green is used for non-POA events.  The primary outside events are weddings managed by Montage Palmetto Bluff (MPB).  For years, the developer has argued that our “quid pro quo” is the rental fees offset money that property owners would otherwise have to pay in POA fees. 

Our objective is to shed more light on the second matter.  Three topics are addressed below—history, current economic arrangements, and potential conflicts/self-dealing by our developer, South Street Partners.  

History.  For many years, our POA charged $1,000 per event for use of the Village Green, regardless of whether the Green was used for one or many days (for set up and tear down).  While the POA does not break out rental revenue for the Green in the annual audited financials, the 2024 POA budget estimated fees at $105,500.  This amounts to less than 1% of our POAs overall revenues (or about $65 to $75 per PB property owner).   In recent years the Village Green repair costs have averaged $35-40,000, so the net economic benefit of the rental fee income is approximately $40 per property owner.    

Current Economic Arrangements.  After years of pressure from property owners, the rental fee paid to the POA was raised in 2024 from $1,000 per event to $3,000 per day.  For example, this means that for a wedding that uses the Green for five days total, the POA would receive $15,000 in revenue, which is a major improvement over the prior pricing arrangement.  With this, we can expect total annual site rental fees to increase to the range of $200k to $300k, which will represent approximately 1.4% of POA revenues, or roughly $125 per PB property owner per year.  Remember that the POA pays for all repair and resodding costs, so it is still unclear if the property owners receive any meaningful economic benefit under the new pricing arrangements.

Montage Palmetto Bluff’s (MPB) list price for the Wilson Green rental is currently $8,000 per day, which provides a $5,000 margin over the “cost” of $3,000 per day paid to the POA.  This arrangement is a potential conflict of interest as SSP owns the hotel and directly benefits from the hotel’s profits while 92% of the POA’s assessment fees are paid by PB property owners.

Potential Conflict of Interest/Self-Dealing.    As owners of the hotel, SSP receives all profits (or losses) from the operation of MPB.   While details of the contract between Montage and SSP are not known, typical hotel management contracts call for the manager (Montage) to receive 3% of revenue plus certain incentives.  For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume Montage receives 5% of revenue.  This means that SSP would receive $4,750 per day in profit as there are no incremental costs to them.   Many believe, including the PBNA volunteers, that this arrangement is wrong, and conflicts with the POA’s fiduciary duties to PB property owners.   The conflict is that SSP management controls the POA board but also runs PB overall in a way that maximizes SSP’s profits. 

Under the terms of the PB governing documents, currently the POA is controlled and managed by SSP.  PB property owners have no input on POA policies regarding wedding locations and pricing.  PB management has defended these arrangements, arguing that there are other potential benefits to PB property owners from the weddings including the marketing of PB and the sale of additional real estate.  Clearly, these potential benefits are far greater for SSP compared to PB property owners.  Moreover, these potential benefits could be obtained by having weddings at other Palmetto Bluff venues including at Montage. 

Most property owners with whom we have discussed this matter believe that the full economic benefit for rental of POA property should accrue to the POA.   Additionally, many believe the potential benefits of Village Green weddings to PB property owners are far outweighed by the associated costs, disruption, inconvenience, as well as security and safety concerns. 

Further, this possible breach of fiduciary duty by the POA is part of the current litigation (initiated in 2022) against SSP and various PB entities.

Closing Questions and Thoughts:   Our questions:  Why doesn’t the full $8,000 per day fee go to the POA?  Is the $8,000 per day fee still below “market,” given the higher pricing doesn’t seem to discourage frequent rental?  Since the Village Green is such a visible source of angst for property owners, why doesn’t POA break out the revenues and repair costs in their published audited financials?  Is our security team (which costs approximately $1,750 year per PB property owner) prioritizing Montage and wedding guests over residents’ safety, freedom of movement and quality of life?

Lastly, most Palmetto Bluff property owners believe that the last thing we need is more litigation.  So, we urge SSP to change their pricing policies and put their fiduciary obligations to the POA and PB property owners first.

2025 Year PBNA Board

We are near the end of our third year since the PBNA “reboot” and it is a natural time for the volunteer board to be refreshed.  While we have some great new candidates, we need more volunteers. 

If you want to be an active part in informing, shaping, and protecting our amazing community's future please consider joining our board as a volunteer.   Please e-mail our Nominations Committee chair, Alan Roth, directly at ar08053@comcast.com

Closing

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to any of the PBNA volunteers:  Bob Morette, Arian Ellis, Alan Roth, Helen Ryan, Ford Bartholow, Eric Sutherland, and Frank Riddick.

If you have friends and neighbors who are interested in joining, please tell them to go to our website, www.pbnabluffton.com, and click “join”.