JV Plans $1B Mixed-Use Brunswick Waterfront Project

BRUNSWICK, GA-In what area insiders boast will be the biggest mixed-use undertaking ever attempted on the Southeast Georgia coastline, WWW Group Holdings of Cleveland and the BriarRose Land Co. of Athens, GA have contracted to buy 110 acres adjacent to the new Sidney Lanier Bridge where they plan to develop Liberty Point, a $1 billion mixed-use community. The first-phase ground-breaking is tentatively scheduled for the fall, according to WWW Group Holdings president Gary Waxman.

The enterprise will include 1,000 condominiums, townhomes and single-family cottages and a town center with undetermined retail and restaurant space. There will also be an entertainment pavilion, a hotel and club complex, a public access marina and a riverfront park and boardwalk, according to Bryan Thompson of Blueprint Brunswick, a private, non-profit agency that is spearheading the redevelopment.

The estimated construction period for the project is two to three years, Tim Newell, a principal at BriarRose, tells GlobeSt.com. The venture is being done at this time because "the timing is right," Newell says. "The market right now is very active for this type of project."

Thompson tells GlobeSt.com the developers are buying the land from two small groups of private investors. "None of the land is city-owned." The deal is expected to close in mid-October in this historic port city of 16,000 permanent residents.

Thompson couldn't provide details of the land contract. However, area industrial brokers familiar with the property tell GlobeSt.com the dirt will go for at least $100,000 an acre ($2.30 per sf) or an estimated total of $11 million. Thompson says the site was once home to the Jones Shipyard. The land is five miles by boat to the St. Simons Island resort community which faces the Atlantic.

Area brokers and consultants tell GlobeSt.com they consider the Sidney Lanier bridge site perfect for the project because of its proximity to a half dozen key Southeast cities. For example, Jacksonville, FL is 40 miles south; Augusta, GA is 160 miles north; Savannah, GA is 60 miles north; Downtown Atlanta is 240 miles northwest; and St. Marys, GA is 40 miles south.

At St. Marys, Land Resource Cos. of Sandy Springs, GA is developing Cumberland Harbour, a 1,014-acre boating community at an estimated development cost of $500 million, as GlobeSt.com previously reported.

Near Augusta, the MG Herring Group of Dallas and Stephens Property Group of Atlanta plan to break ground in March 2006 on the Village at Riverwatch Parkway, a planned $160-million, 800,000-sf, 132-acre open-air shopping center, as GlobeSt.com also previously reported.