Drive north out of Mount Pleasant on Highway 17 and the marsh opens up the way it always has, live oaks leaning over the road, the air changing the moment you cross into Awendaw. Then you hit the stretch just past Doar Road and something is different. There's a soccer complex where there used to be scrub pine. There's an ice cream shop with a hand-painted sign where there used to be nothing at all. And down at 4808 North Highway 17, See Wee Restaurant sits exactly where it has sat since 1993, in a building that was a general store back in the 1920s, looking like none of this is any of its business.
That's the thing worth sitting with. See Wee didn't cause any of this. The reason a half-mile of rural highway in a town of roughly 1,500 people suddenly has a youth soccer complex, a new ice cream parlor, and a county-owned parcel earmarked for a swimming pool has almost nothing to do with Awendaw itself. It has to do with Mount Pleasant running out of room, and Awendaw being the place with the room left.
The Field That Started It
Shea Family Fields, at 5050 North Highway 17, opened in October 2024 after about three years of planning. The South Carolina Surf Soccer Club is the anchor tenant on a 12-acre first phase of what's ultimately a 104-acre parcel, land the GBSC Foundation acquired from the McCaskill family, who had owned it since the 1970s. The initial build includes two full-size 11v11 fields and one 9v9 field, with the larger fields also marked for 7v7 and 9v9 play so different age groups can share the same turf without retaping lines every weekend.
Here's the part that explains why this landed in Awendaw and not somewhere closer to where most of the players actually live. Mount Pleasant has grown by more than 30,000 residents since 2010, with its population climbing past 96,000 by 2024, and its recreation department simply could not keep pace with demand for practice and game space. SC Surf, which served more than 900 local families as of its 2024 groundbreaking announcement, needed a permanent home. Awendaw had the acreage. Mount Pleasant had the kids.
The club isn't finished building, either. Charleston Battery, the professional soccer club that plays out of Patriots Point, has been planning a training facility on the adjacent portion of the same 104 acres, a project that would add a grass practice pitch and a locker-room and training building next door to the youth fields.
Ice Cream Follows Fields
Directly across the street, at 5103 North Highway 17, Awe So Sweet opened in mid-July 2026. The owner, Dorcas Rhodes, grew up in Awendaw and told local news she'd wanted to bring an ice cream parlor to her hometown for years. The shop scoops Wholly Cow Ice Cream, a Charleston-based producer that's been making ice cream for other shops and restaurants around the state for 42 years, and Rhodes has gone for what she describes as a 1950s retro look with a present-day twist.
It's a sweet story on its own, but it's also a location decision that makes more sense once you look across the road. A town of under 2,000 people doesn't generate the daily foot traffic to reliably support a scoop shop by itself. A soccer complex that pulls in tournament weekends' worth of parents and siblings from Mount Pleasant, all of them sitting through games with nowhere nearby to get a snack, does. Rhodes built her hometown dream next to the one thing in Awendaw guaranteed to bring a crowd on a Saturday.
The County Is Already Building the Next Piece
Charleston County Parks and Recreation confirmed this summer that it has acquired nearly 94 acres just south of Awendaw, a site that shares a boundary with Francis Marion National Forest and includes a nearly 5-acre freshwater pond, 33 acres of wooded highland, and 42 acres of wetlands. Senior planner Matt Moldenhauer said the first phase is expected to include an outdoor 25-meter swimming pool, along with walking trails, picnic areas, and pond access, with a multi-use field and possibly a basketball or pickleball court to follow in later phases. County officials say they hope to have the park open in about four years, which would put a realistic opening somewhere around 2030.
Moldenhauer's stated reasoning wasn't about recreation for its own sake. He specifically pointed to reducing drownings in rural communities that don't have easy access to a place to learn to swim, calling it a service gap the area has gone without for a long time. That's a different kind of amenity than a soccer field or an ice cream cone, but it's built on the same logic as everything else on this stretch of road: Mount Pleasant's growth spilled north, the county followed the demand, and Awendaw is where the land was.
Here's how the corridor lines up right now:
| Spot | What it is | Status | Address |
|---|---|---|---|
| See Wee Restaurant | Southern seafood diner in a 1920s former general store, running since 1993 | Open daily, closed only Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas | 4808 N Highway 17 |
| Shea Family Fields | Home turf for SC Surf Soccer Club, three fields on a 12-acre first phase | Opened October 2024, Charleston Battery training facility planned next door | 5050 N Highway 17 |
| Awe So Sweet | Family-owned ice cream parlor scooping Wholly Cow Ice Cream | Opened mid-July 2026 | 5103 N Highway 17 |
| Future county park | Charleston County Parks site with planned 25-meter pool, trails, and picnic areas | Land acquired in 2026, opening projected around 2030 | South of Awendaw, bordering Francis Marion National Forest |
The One Thing That Hasn't Changed
Awendaw's own population sits at an estimated 1,519 people as of 2026, barely up from the 1,410 counted in the 2020 census. None of what's landing on Highway 17 is a response to Awendaw growing. It's a response to Awendaw being the last place along this corridor with room to put things that a much bigger neighbor needed.
See Wee is the one fixed point through all of it. The building has been serving fried flounder and shrimp po'boys since 1993 out of a structure that was already 70 years old when the restaurant opened, and it still keeps the same short list of closed days, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, with live music on the patio and seasonal events like this year's Labor Day gathering running right on schedule. It was here before the soccer complex, before the ice cream shop, and it'll be here after the county finishes whatever it builds on those 94 acres. Everything new on this road has organized itself around a landmark that isn't trying to be anything other than what it's always been.
If you live along this stretch, the practical upshot is straightforward. There's now a reason to stop for ice cream after a Saturday game instead of driving back into Mount Pleasant hungry. There's a swim option coming to a part of the county that has never had one nearby. And there's still exactly one place to get a proper plate of fried shrimp on your way home, same as there was thirty years ago.
Awendaw isn't becoming something else. It's just holding the overflow for the town next door, and picking up a soccer complex, an ice cream parlor, and eventually a pool in the process.
If you're curious what any of this growth means for property values along the Highway 17 corridor, or you just want a neighbor's read on what's coming next, Kimberly Lease and Charleston Hot Properties know this stretch of road as well as anyone. Reach out anytime, whether you're weighing a move or just want to talk through what you're seeing change around you.
