About The Islander. (St. Simons Island, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (July 27, 2020)
THE ^ISLANDER Published by Permar Publications www.theislanderonline.com ssislander@bellsouth.net July 27, 2020 Established in 1972 Vol 48 Issue 30 Kiosks may go to Brunswick If the art museum that Sea Island resort owner Phillip Anschutz has proposed for this Mallery St. site at the pier village on St. Simons Island gets approved, these kiosks could be relocated to the Brunswick Landing Marina in downtown Brunswick. Islander Staff Photo - Permar Mallery St. art museum gets rezoning nod from IPC; but design review deferred to August By Matthew J. Permar Removal of Golden Ray delayed By Pamela Permar- Shierling Last week the St. Simons Sound Incident Unified Com mand, which consists of the U.S. Coast Guard, Georgia Department of Natural Re sources (DNR), and Gallagher Marine Systems, announced a pause in the actual cutting up of the capsized Golden Ray. Cmdr. Efren Lopez, U.S. Coast Guard, John Maddox, DNR, and Tom Wiker, Galla gher Marine, told the media last Friday during a virtual press conference that once the cutting up of the ship began, it must continue. Based on the COVID im pact as well as a predicted active hurricane season, the group decided to delay the ship’s dismantling until at least early October. The cut ting and lifting was scheduled to start early to mid July. All three men emphasized that work preparing the ship for removal has not stopped. Wiker commented that CO VID has already impacted the supply chain needed for the on-going work. “COVID and hurricane sea son together have posed logis tical challenges,” Wiker said. The plan, Wiker said, is to continue preparing the ship for removal. “The Golden Ray maintains structural stabil ity,” he said. “Also there is no problem with the shipping channel so commerce can continue.” “The environmental pro tection barrier will remain around the ship and 24/7 monitoring will continue,” he said. Maddox emphasized that the pause pertains only to the cutting and lifting of the Gold en Ray; other activities will continue. “Any environmental Turn to Page 10 Golden Ray In what was one of the most convoluted pair of ap plications they’ve heard in a while, Glynn County’s Islands Planning Commission (IPC) recommended approval last week (Tuesday, July 21) of a rezoning for a controversial art museum in the St. Simons pier village area. In a separate agenda item about the museum, the ap plicant, Sandy Vacation, LLC owner Philip Anschutz, also requested design review ap proval of the museum’s design and approval of the demolition of the existing buildings on the half acre tract, including 15 kiosks in the Pier Village Market, a commercial build ing at 308 Mallery (that actu ally front on Beachview Dr.), and a single family dwelling unit at 513 Beachview Dr. Anschutz also owns the Sea Island resort company. While the first request will go to the Glynn County Board of Commissioners (BOC) with a recommendation of approv al, the second request was deferred. Rezoning request The property is located at the intersection of Mallery St. and Beachview Dr. on St. Si mons in the pier village area. Anschutz purchased the property where the 15 kiosks sit and the two buildings be hind them on Beachview and an open space on Oglethorpe Ave. Anschutz owns the entire block with the exception of the building that houses Simons Gallery Gifts on Mallery St. The property is zoned Vil lage Mixed Use (VMU) and Anschutz requested it be re zoned to Planned Develop ment (PD). In her report to the IPC, Planning Manager Stefanie Lief said the proposed mu seum was 20,000 sq. ft. and because the lot was less than three acres, a site plan was re quired to be in the PD text and is valid in perpetuity. She also said the PD text reduced the parking require ment from one space per 70 sq. ft. of building space that is open to the public to one space per 400 sq. ft. of building space. The existing kiosks do not have any on-site parking. Museum parking will be on Oglethorpe Ave. on the north side of the museum. The PD text also sought a reduction in the buffer from 10 ft. wide to three ft. wide. There are currently no buf fers around any of the existing buildings. Turn to Page 6 Art museum County-Wide News - Read County-Wide Page 3 - SGHS completes phase of new emergency room Page 9 - Talking Sports with Dave Jordan Page 12 - Back Talk Glynn school start date changed By Pamela Permar- Shierling Glynn County Schools won’t start this year until August 20. The original start date was August 11. The Board of Edu cation agreed to this calendar change at their Special Called Meeting last week, July 21. School Superintendent Dr. Scott Spence said he did not propose extending the school year because of the later start date. He did say that if, closer to the end of the year, high school students needed the ex tra time, he would not object to extending the first semes ter into the first two weeks of 2021. “We have to be flexible,” he said. ‘We have asked for a waiv er from state testing,” Spence said. “The students spend Turn to Page 4 School start date JIA ends financial year on f ositive note y Pamela Permar- Shierling Preliminary numbers for the Jekyll Island Authority’s fiscal year ending June 30 in dicate that the Authority will not have to tap into their bud get reserves to make up for the COVID losses. Even July is tracking bet ter than expected according to Marjorie Johnson, Chief Accounting Officer. A 25% de crease was budgeted for July due to COVID but during the first part of the month reve nues are higher than expected. While Jekyll’s June traffic is off 15%, from June of last year, since March 2020 traf fic has increased almost 200 percent. Jones Hooks, JIA Execu tive Director commented that Turn to Page 2 JIA ' 0 9492229970 3
