About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 2019)
March 18, 2019, The Islander, Page 3 City development Continued from Page 1 are advantages to living the Califor nia lifestyle.” “You have old homes that people want to live in and walk downtown to work,” he said. “Brunswick has four airports - Brunswick Golden Isles Air port, McKinnon-St. Simons, Savan nah and Jacksonville. You can get to Jacksonville from Brunswick quicker than you can get to Hartsfield-Atlanta from almost anywhere in the Atlanta area.” “Instead of talking to one prospec tive tenant at a time, go to all of them at once. Make a pitch, motivate them to come to Brunswick to come look,” he said. “Mayor (Cornell) Harvey suggested to me that Andrews Island could be the perfect center for development,” Podlin said. Podlin also talked about a redevel opment project in Grundy, Va. that began in 2010 during the economic downturn. A Walmart and associated town center were built on top of a two- story parking garage on 13 acres that was a blasted away from a mountain side. Customers get to the Walmart on escalators. “The Walmart is hidden,” Podlin. ‘You don’t realize it’s there.” Podlin pointed out that Grudy was also handicapped by many years of flooding. It took a local, state and federal investment of about $200 million to make the project succeed, but the proj ect saved the town. Podlin was involved with the River City Market Place shopping center in North Jacksonville across 1-95 from the Jacksonville Airport. “North Jacksonville was over looked for development,” he said. “Development was focused south of Jacksonville.” “Brunswick is the same as North Jacksonville,” he said. “Things get overlooked. I am not saying this will be easy. You will need both public and private funding and approval from the Port Authority.” “But we can have here what coun tries who are 50 years behind America have,” Podlin said. He used the booming economies of South Korea and China as examples and likened them to what Brunswick can do. Mayor Harvey commented, “We need to step up and make things happen.” As far as what the city is doing to encourage business, Travis Stegall, the city’s Department of Economic and Community Development Director, said that the ordinances were being updated; Brian Corry, city attorney, pointed out that Enterprise Zones for the TAD (Tax Allocation District) had been created. Stegall pointed out that Brunswick is now a qualified opportunity zone which brings tax benefits and investor opportunities. “We need to go find these develop ers and investors,” Harvey said. Com. Johnny Cason pointed out that the city at one time had the bank ing industry downtown. “While we are Business Update creating opportunities, it’s important to hold on to what we have.” City Manager Jim Drumm said that the federal tax abatement provided by the opportunity zone designation can be applied to current business. At this point the discussion turned to the commission’s 2018 goals and what had been completed. Each goal was ranked in impor tance by each commissioner, the indi vidual rankings compiled, and a prior ity list was created. The city’s top ten priorities for 2018 in order were: create stormwater man agement utility, improve College Park drainage, construct Oglethorpe Con ference Center, recruit a downtown hotel, continue the Community De velopment Block Grant program for housing and micro-enterprise, rede velop Perry School site for affordable housing, conduct a pay plan review, go paperless, relocate Liberty Roll-Off, adopt Glynn Avenue guidelines. Items that were complete in 2018 include the stormwater management utility, continuing the block grant, Glynn Ave. guidelines were adopted, and while not in the top ten, a Plan ning & Appeals committee was cre ated and members appointed. Other items, not top priority, com pleted in 2018 include continued trail construction with SPLOST dollars, tree board created, and employees re ceived raises. City engineer and public works director Garrow Alberson told the commission that he is working with the Georgia Dept, of Transportation (DOT) on the College Park drainage situation. “We were given specific require ments to meet by the DOT which we now know we can meet. But we didn’t want to pay for the design engineer ing before we knew what the specific requirements were,” Alberson said. “Both the city and county have design money,” Alberson continued. “But the construction money will be included in the 2020 SPLOST for the city and county.” The Perry School site is still on the table since plans put forth by two developers interested in the site did not materialize. Com. Julie Martin asked why the Perry school site was so difficult. “Should we be looking at it for more senior housing?” she asked. Stegall said that Brunswick’s land value is now about the value of the project that goes on the land. Com. 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