The State Ports Authority is moving forward on negotiations and discussions with Hilton Head Island design firm Wood and Partners to create a redevelopment plan for the Port of Port Royal.

"In my mind, the number one thing was that they were the most local," said Beaufort attorney Tom Davis, a member of the Ports Authority's board of directors. "Members of that team had the most ties to the area."

Gov. Mark Sanford in September signed a bill closing the small shipping terminal and instructing the Ports Authority to sell its Port Royal property, about 40 acres on Battery Creek, paving the way for the site's redevelopment.

Davis, Sanford's former chief of staff, was appointed to the board earlier this month. His first board meeting included interviews with Wood and Partners and two other firms considered for the waterfront redesign.

Davis said he was impressed with how Wood and Partners incorporated ideas from the conceptual plan created in July by the Town of Port Royal and Baltimore-based design firm Design Collective.

"We're very supportive and sympathetic of that plan," Davis said. "One of the prominent goals of the Ports Authority is to take into account what the Town of Port Royal wants, and to accommodate them as much as possible."

The town's plan included public access to the water, park space, shops, restaurants and a hotel.

"All these things combined to make them the obvious choice for me," Davis said.

The town was familiar with and confident of all three teams, but choosing a local firm should be a benefit to the redevelopment process, Port Royal Mayor Sam Murray said.

"I think it's important because they're familiar with the area, familiar with the surroundings," Murray said. "I think it's a plus."

Wood and Partners also was recently pegged to lead the redesign of Beaufort's Pigeon Point Park.

Members of the agency helped design the Newpoint and Habersham developments, which include similar architecture and structures to what already exists in Port Royal, Davis said. That experience should help the firm blend the redeveloped port property into the town's existing fabric, he said.

"I expect a marvelous downtown area where visitors will come in and think it's always been part of the town," Davis said.

Final details of the contract aren't yet available, but Ports Authority officials said they don't expect anything to prevent the group from moving forward.