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Bryan County officials look to move on from Volvo
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Bryan County Commission Chairman Jimmy Burnsed awoke early Monday morning to a phone call with news he didn’t want.

Luxury automaker Volvo announced that it had not chosen Bryan County as the site for is first American plant, opting instead to build the $500 million manufacturing facility near Charleston, South Carolina.

“It was disappointing because of the amount of work that we had put into it,” Burnsed said. “And we just felt like we had a better product.”
What ultimately swung Volvo’s decision, Burnsed surmised, was that “South Carolina apparently outbid us on incentives.” South Carolina reportedly offered more than $200 million in state and local incentives to land the Chinese-owned, Sweden-based carmaker.

“That might be what really swayed the whole thing,” Burnsed said. “We were told our site was a very preferred site, so we were very hopeful. But we didn’t get it.”

Burnsed also chairs the Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Development Authority, a combined effort by Bryan, Bulloch, Chatham and Effingham counties to attract and facilitate projects significant to the region. Development Authority of Bryan County Chairman Derrick Smith also serves on the joint authority, which formed in January.

Collaborating to recruit Volvo to Bryan County was the first project the Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor joint authority worked from start to finish, according to Development Authority of Bryan County CEO Anna Chafin.

“While we definitely wanted to win this project and create the associated jobs and investment in our region, I think the (joint authority) should be proud that we competed so well for a project of this magnitude so quickly after formalizing,” she said.

Volvo officials first visited Bryan County in late September, Chafin said. The site selection process “really intensified” in late February, she said, and concluded earlier this month.

“For 12 weeks, we had numerous meetings with company representatives discussing everything from the site and workforce to logistics and quality of life,” Chafin said. “This project required several of us at the local and state level to practically work seven days a week for 12 weeks.”

Burnsed agreed that local and state leaders did all they could to land Volvo in Bryan County. He praised the efforts by Gov. Nathan Deal, Chafin, county staff, the joint authority, the Savannah Economic Development Authority and consulting firm Thomas & Hutton, among others.

“I can’t fault anybody,” Burnsed said. “It was a team effort. We were united and we went with it full-bore and did the best we could, so it’s a shame we didn’t get it.”

The South Carolina plant will produce up to 100,000 cars per year with the first vehicles expected to roll off the assembly line in 2018, according to the news release Volvo issued Monday. The plant reportedly will provide about 4,000 jobs and attract a number of related manufacturers.

“Economic development, of course, is what we need in our area, and it would have been a wonderful,” Pembroke Mayor Mary Warnell said. “I can’t even imagine what it would have done for this section of our state — in addition to Bryan County, for the neighboring counties — and for the number of jobs that would have been available.”

What’s next for ‘megasite’?

Had Georgia landed the Volvo plant, it would have been built in northern Bryan County. The Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor authority applied last month to the Army Corps of Engineers and the state for permission to build a 1,900-acre “megasite” at Interstate 16 and Highway 280 in Black Creek.

The plans for the site “are still to be determined,” Chafin said Tuesday. Burnsed added that he is ready to put behind the disappointment of Volvo’s decision and look ahead to the next industrial prospect.

“It’s done and it’s over with, so we’ll go on,” he said. “We’re still told by the Georgia Department of Economic Development that we have a tremendous site and that somebody else will be looking at it. We’re still hopeful.”

The DABC will continue to market Bryan County as a “great place” to work, live and raise a family, Chafin said.

“We will leverage the fact that Bryan County is home to two shovel-ready interstate industrial parks, Interstate Centre on I-16 and Belfast Commerce Centre on I-95, that are less than 30 minutes from the Port of Savannah,” she said. “Hopefully, we have received some good exposure for Bryan County and the region from the Volvo project that will help attract additional interest in our area.”

As did Chafin and Burnsed, Warnell used the word “disappointed” in describing Volvo’s decision. She, too, looked for a silver lining.

“Perhaps this means that the doors will open for another one,” Warnell said.

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Later yall, its been fun
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This is among the last pieces I’ll ever write for the Bryan County News.

Friday is my last day with the paper, and come June 1 I’m headed back to my native Michigan.

I moved here in 2015 from the Great Lake State due to my wife’s job. It’s amicable, but she has since moved on to a different life in a different state, and it’s time for me to do the same.

My son Thomas, an RHHS grad as of Saturday, also is headed back to Michigan to play basketball for a small school near Ann Arbor called Concordia University. My daughter, Erin, is in law school at University of Toledo. She had already begun her college volleyball career at Lourdes University in Ohio when we moved down here and had no desire to leave the Midwest.

With both of them and the rest of my family up north, there’s no reason for me to stay here. I haven’t missed winter one bit, but I’m sure I won’t miss the sand gnats, either.

Shortly after we arrived here in 2015, I got a job in communications with a certain art school in Savannah for a few short months. It was both personally and professionally toxic and I’ll leave it at that.

In March 2016 I signed on with the Bryan County News as assistant editor and I’ve loved every minute of it. My “first” newspaper career, in the late 80s and early 90s, was great. But when I left it to work in politics and later with a free-market think tank, I never pictured myself as an ink-stained wretch again.

Like they say, never say never.

During my time here at the News, I’ve covered everything that came along. That’s one big difference between working for a weekly as opposed to a daily paper. Reporters at a daily paper have a “beat” to cover. At a weekly paper like this, you cover … life. Sports, features, government meetings, crime, fundraisers, parades, festivals, successes, failures and everything in between. Oh, and hurricanes. Two of them. I’ll take a winter blizzard over that any day.

Along the way I’ve met a lot of great people. Volunteers, business owners, pastors, students, athletes, teachers, coaches, co-workers, first responders, veterans, soldiers and yes, even some politicians.

And I learned that the same adrenalin rush from covering “breaking news” that I experienced right out of college is still just as exciting nearly 30 years later.

With as much as I’ve written about the population increase and traffic problems, at least for a few short minutes my departure means there will be one less vehicle clogging up local roads. At least until I pass three or four moving vans headed this way as I get on northbound I-95.

The hub-bub over growth here can be humorous, unintentional and ironic all at once. We often get comments on our Facebook page that go something like this: “I’ve lived here for (usually less than five years) and the growth is out of control! We need a moratorium on new construction.”

It’s like people who move into phase I of “Walden Woods” subdivision after all the trees are cleared out and then complain about trees being cut down for phase II.

Bryan County will always hold a special place in my heart and I definitely plan on visiting again someday. My hope is that my boss, Jeff Whitten (one of the best I’ve ever had), will let me continue to be part of the Pembroke Mafia Football League from afar. If the Corleone family could expand to Vegas, there’s no reason the PMFL can’t expand to Michigan.

But the main reason I want to return someday is about that traffic issue. After all, I’ll need to see it with my own eyes before I’ll believe that Highway 144 actually got widened.

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