About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 3, 2018)
THE ^ISLANDER Published by Permar Publications www.theislanderonline.com ssislander@bellsouth.net September 3, 2018 Demere repaving hits potential snag By Matthew J. Permar After the Glynn County Board of Commissioners’ (BOC) work session on August 21, the Public Works Depart ment was on track to start re paving the stretch of Demere Rd. between the stop light at Frederica Academy and Chick-fil-A® - but the project has hit a snag. By the time the BOC’s Fi nance Committee met a week later on Tuesday August 28, new information had come to light about the turn lanes that could potentially hold up the project. The original plan was to start by mid to late September and be done by the Georgia / Florida football game on Octo ber 27. The project contained three separate parts that were bid as one project - the milling and repaving; new drainage lines; and new turn lanes at the Reserve at Demere resi dential subdivision. Engineering Supervisor David DeLoach said that even though the project was bid as a whole, internally it was broken up into three parts be cause the money was coming from different accounts. Due to concerns about the turn lanes, the decision by the finance committee last week was to recommend that the full BOC reduce the scope of work by removing the turn lane portion of the project and awarding the contract to the lowest responsive and re sponsible bidder, which was East Coast Asphalt of Doug las, Georgia in the amount of $792,268. What happened was... back in 2014 Mary Wan LLC, the developer of the Reserve at Demere, was required by Glynn County, as part of the development, to construct the Turn to Page 6 Demere repaving Established in 1972 Vol 46 Issue 36 Intersection improvements The proposed 'traditional intersection’ road improvements at the intersection of Kings Way and Frederica Rd. on St. Simons Island. The design was presented by Glynn Public Works during a recent Glynn County Board of Commissioners work session. Developed by Southeastern Engineering Inc., the designs also included a roundabout as an option for this intersection, but commission consensus seems to favor this version over the roundabout. Image by Southeastern Engineering Inc. Roundabout not likely at Kings Way / Frederica By Matthew J. Permar At one time, while the Glynn County Board of Commission ers (BOC) was planning for the road improvements they intend to make on St. Simons Island with Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax 2016 money, they considered con structing a roundabout at the intersection of Kings Way and Frederica Road on the island’s south end. However, while other roundabouts are still being considered for other island intersections, Kings Way and Frederica is going to remain a “traditional” intersection with a traffic signal. The im provements are going to be additional turn lanes and an upgraded traffic signal. A consensus to this effect was reached at a recent BOC work session (August 21) when Scott Jordan of South eastern Engineering Inc. (SEI) presented an evaluation of both the traditional and roundabout options for the intersection. The county con tracted with SEI to perform the evaluation and compari son of the two options. At the work session the BOC told staff to move for ward with getting a bid for construction of the traditional intersection improvements. In past discussions, when the roundabout option was being considered, Islands Commissioner Peter Murphy (Dist. 2), was skeptical of a roundabout for that particu lar intersection. He suggested having staff do the engineer ing comparison of the two op tions, which is what Jordan presented. According to the report, both the traditional and roundabout options were eval uated using new traffic counts that were taken during the first full week of June. SEI worked in conjunction with county staff, the Glynn County airport staff and Sea Island Acquisition LLC (SLA). Jordan said multiple meetings were held with the stakeholders. SIA owns much of the sur rounding property at the in tersection, including the south Turn to Page 10 Kings Way Keeping Jekyll Jekyll - a manageable problem By Pamela Permar Shierling The Jekyll Island Author ity (JIA) has a problem most of wish we had, success. But the problem success has brought is keeping Jekyll Jekyll; keeping the ambiance tourists come to Jekyll to en joy and the delicate balance between the environment and man / woman. In February of this year the JIA hired Sand County Stu dios from Smyrna, Ga. to con duct a ‘carrying capacity and infrastructure assessment’ that would allow the JIA Board to make informed deci sions about land use, density, development projects, and amenity enhancements. The Turn to Page 7 Keeping Jekyll JIA approves One Georgia MOU for $2.5 million By Pamela Permar Shierling During last week’s meet ing (Aug. 28) the Jekyll Island Authority (JIA) approved a Memorandum of Understand ing (MOU) with OneGeorgia Authority to accept a $2.5 million grant which will go to ward beach revetment infra structure improvements. Funds are from the FY 2018 State amended budget and will be used to construct and rebuild 16 beach access structures at the end of ev ery residential “t-street” from Brice Lane northward to Tallu Fish Lane as well as one more at the northern terminus of the revetment connecting to the popular Driftwood Beach area. Turn to Page 12 JIA grant County-Wide News - Read County-Wide Page 3 - GP donates $25,000 to Y Page 4 - GICCA named Career Academy of the year Page 5 - Health: Free prostate screenings Page 8 - Jl Arts hosts 2 Ga artists Page 14 - Mission group from Acworth helps restore Brunswick home Page 16- Back Talk 0 94922 29970 3
