Economic Development Authority of Columbia County (EDACC) Chairman Rick Evans remarked during its monthly meeting, Wednesday morning, that White Oak Park in Appling is attracting interest, with developers eyeing the area.
On May 20, the Board of Commissioners approved rezoning some 1,900 acres from Residential Agricultural (R-A) to Special (S-1) to make way for a tech-industry centered expansion of the park.
“Our goal is to be a facilitator and making sure that what happens in that area is a positive influence for Columbia County, and not something that is haphazardly done an approach,” said Evans. “So we’ll do our best and make it the best.”
Stan Shepherd, chair of EDACC’s Property Development Committee, reiterated this, noting that the committee’s most recent meeting discussed the rezoning, then still processing, as well as traffic patterns within the park and growing interest from prospective industries.
One of the items discussed during that meeting, Shepherd said, was EDACC and the county partnering to develop a website for locals to visit and get answers to various questions, particularly those regarding data centers.
Board secretary Jean Garniewicz, reporting on the Business and Workforce Committee’s latest discussions, highlighted that the third phase of White Oak’s development is “in good shape for obtaining transmission capabilities from Georgia Power,” as explained by fellow committee member Kerry Bridges, a region executive Georgia Power.
“It typically takes on the order of about six months for us to evaluate large system loads like this, and we’re evaluating mark multiple large system loads around the state at the same time,” said Bridges to the other EDACC board members. “So it’s a little bit of a moving target, but it’s that process that we go through involves deep transmission studies, deep generation studies to see if we can get the power and move those electronics to the site.”
Board member Jim Cox, in his report on the May 5 meeting of EDACC’s Business Recruitment and Incentive Program Committee, mentioned that the committee reviewed property along Horizon South Parkway for the possibility of being converted to a waste sortation center, and conferred with the planning department on whether such a project would be viable there.
“The one piece of code that we found was that [for] those type of processing centers, you need to carefully consider the proximity to neighborhoods, and there literally was a neighborhood directly across the street,” said Cox.
After referring the matter to EDACC’s executive committee, Cox explained, the Authority ultimately decided not to approve that use for the site.
EDACC Executive Director Cheney Eldridge stated further that the Authority decision was not because the site’s zoning would not have allowed for a waste sortation facility, but rather the Authority’s own covenants restricted such use.
“And in addition to that, we actually we didn’t just say no without trying to provide this alternative as well. So we discussed several locations that might be suitable for that,” said Cox. “There is a need in the county for that type service in the right location, so we tried to assist and give change some alternatives. So it’s just not a hard ‘No,’ but you could go in and try to bring those folks to the county, because it would be an asset to the county.”
Skyler Andrews is a reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
