The Parking Lot That's Been Doing Forest Beach's Public Work Since 1955
September 17, 2026
September 17, 2026
If you walked into Coligny Plaza for a coffee this month and noticed a patrol car parked where a gift shop used to sit, you weren't imagining things. The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office opened a satellite office at 6 Lagoon Road in early August, a short walk from the ice cream counters and beach umbrellas that usually define this stretch of North Forest Beach. It's a small addition in square footage, and a new use for a familiar plaza.
Coligny Plaza has long been described as Hilton Head's downtown, with shopping and dinner options among its familiar features. Its history also includes services used by island residents, and the sheriff's office is its newest addition.
Before Charles Fraser broke ground on Sea Pines, a man named Norris Richardson had already put down the first commercial roots on the island's south end. There was no bridge to Hilton Head at the time, so Richardson had the materials for his first venture shipped in by barge. That venture was Forest Beach Market, the island's first grocery store, and its first customer was Charles Fraser himself, years before Fraser became the name most associated with planned development here.
Forest Beach Market grew into Coligny Plaza, and as it grew, Richardson kept stacking firsts onto the property. Depending on which local account you read, the plaza opened somewhere in the mid-1950s. What isn't in dispute is the list of things it did first for the island:
That last one is worth sitting with. Richardson built the pharmacy before he had staff for it. It was an early example of the services that became part of the plaza.
The sheriff's satellite office is the plaza's latest addition. According to WTOC's coverage of the opening, the new location is in addition to the department's existing substation at Shelter Cove, and it exists specifically to expand the sheriff's presence on the south end of the island, the stretch that includes Forest Beach, Coligny Beach Park, and the plaza itself. The space came through a partnership with JR Richardson and The Richardson Group, the same Richardson family that has held the property since the barge-delivered grocery store days, and the lease runs for one dollar a year.
The office occupies space that might otherwise have gone to a retail tenant. The sheriff's office joins the plaza's existing mix of shops and services.
If you live within walking distance, this changes something concrete about your afternoon. Non-emergency questions, a lost dog, a fender bender in the plaza's own lot, now have a physical office a few hundred feet from where you'd already be running errands, rather than a drive to Shelter Cove.
Public safety isn't the only thing that moved through Coligny this month. On September 6, Sweet Al's marked its fourth year at the plaza with its third annual Donut Eating Competition, the kind of event that only makes sense for a business that expects to still be there next September and the one after. That same Sunday morning, Skillets Café & Grill hosted a book signing with local author Cheryl Ricer for her book "She Believed," running from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., turning a breakfast spot into a small literary stop for a few hours.
Neither of those events shows up on a tourism calendar built for visitors booking a week out. They reflect Coligny Plaza's role as a place where the businesses are known quantities to the people who live near them, not just backdrops for a vacation photo.
The plaza's live entertainment lineup runs on a similar rhythm. Coligny Theatre's Sea Glass Stage keeps a schedule of local performers, and spots like Big Bamboo Cafe bill themselves plainly as a locals' restaurant and live music venue. If you've noticed the same faces at the same tables on a Thursday night, that's not a coincidence. It's the plaza doing what it has always done, which is give a neighborhood a place to be regulars.
One more thing has changed quietly at the plaza, and it matters more the longer you live here than it does on a first visit. Bike rental options have multiplied. Sharky's Bike Rentals and Uzip Electric Bike Rentals both operate out of or near the plaza now, which means the walk from a Forest Beach address to Coligny no longer has to be a walk at all, and it doesn't require driving and hunting for parking either.
For anyone living on the North Forest Beach side, close enough that walkable oceanfront living is part of the daily calculation, that's a meaningful shift. A ten-minute bike ride replaces what used to be a ten-minute drive plus a parking search, especially during the stretch from April through October when the plaza keeps its hours until 8 p.m.
None of this is dramatic on its own. A police substation, a donut contest, a book signing, more bike rental options. Taken together, they show Coligny Plaza's mix of businesses, events, and services continuing to evolve. Richardson built a pharmacy before he had a pharmacist. Seventy years later, his family is leasing office space to the county sheriff for a dollar a year. The plaza's mix of uses continues to change.
If you already live in Forest Beach, none of this requires you to do anything. It's simply worth knowing that the plaza a few blocks from your driveway now includes the sheriff's office alongside its familiar businesses.
If you're weighing a move to this stretch of the south end, or wondering what a property near Coligny Plaza is actually worth given how much has changed around it this year, Kelly Ruhlin knows this pocket of the island block by block. Schedule a private consultation or get your instant home valuation to talk through what North Forest Beach living actually looks like day to day, not just on a listing sheet.
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