Our SuperSmart logistics real estate investment experience in the 700 square mile Los Angeles Freight Corridor taught us to look for new business and jobs based community locations on corridors that lead away from the water shipping ports and connect with other major supply line and end use markets. This is why we selected the TURTLE RIVER CID location to develop a high quality jobs and lifestyle community for the higher end of the R&D, logistics fulfillment and distribution center markets. Logistics industry growth in Glynn County will represent the next generation of innovation and technology.

Land is lure for jobs

Date July 25, 2006

By MARY STARR

The Brunswick News

The Brunswick and Glynn County Development Authority is betting that by spending $17.1 million to acquire more industrial land it can attract an unidentified company and its jobs to the area.

The company, whose identity has not been disclosed even to the authority, has expressed interest through the state in building a distribution center in Glynn County that would employ up to 600 workers.

"We're ideally situated between two major metropolitan areas and in close proximity to three ports," said Nathan Sparks, executive director of the authority. "We have a geographic advantage and we're capable of handling (multiple types of) transportation."

The authority is spending $17.1 million on a 687-acre tract owned by Iluka Mining and hopes to offer a total of 300 acres on which companies can build distribution centers. "We plan to sell off the rest," Sparks said.

Funds to purchase the land, bordered by the Golden Isles Parkway, Georgia 99 and Interstate 95, will be secured by land the authority owns in its existing industrial parks.

The unidentified company searching for a location for a distribution center, referred to as "Project Gemini" by the development authority, needs a minimum of 100 acres for a 920,000-square foot distribution center.

The Project Gemini group is being represented by a site consultant who is keeping the group's identity confidential. The company has indicated it would hire 470 people initially and a total of 600 by the time the facility is fully operational.

Once it decides on a location, the company intends to make a $45 million investment, $30 million of which will be for the building and $15 million for equipment.

"We're the only site in Georgia still in the running (for the center)," Sparks said.

Sparks pointed out that distribution, as an economic sector, is a healthy industry and one that continues to grow.

"We have the work force," Sparks said. "They're looking for a viable work force and they look to the service sector as their labor pool."

Sparks said men and women in the service sector are looking to move up and that distribution centers have a reputation of paying good wages, usually in the $10 to $14 an hour range, and providing full benefits packages.

"Distribution center jobs provide a niche between service sector jobs and manufacturing jobs," Sparks said.

At a meeting of the authority Monday, Sparks said that a contract had been entered into to purchase the tract from Iluka Resources, an Australian mining company that until recently had a titanium mining operation in Brantley County under the name TE Consolidated.

Iluka bought the Glynn County tract several years ago, but said earlier this year that it was ceasing operations in Georgia and Florida.

Sparks expects the deal to close in mid-October.

Tony Sammons, outgoing chair of the development authority, said he's been working with Iluka for four years on this project.

Sammons said that at one time Iluka was interested in opening a titanium mine on the tract, but because of pressure from surrounding residents, the company's mining permit was denied.

"We've been working to find a good use for it since then," Sammons said.