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Jeff Whitten: Introducing a Mini-Site
editor's notes

Editor’s note: If I dare say so myself, and I do, I’ve had a bit of an epiphany. A bolt from the ethereal blue. A burst of inspiration so profound it will boggle those poor souls with lesser minds than ours. In short, since I can’t beat them I’m going to join them. I’m fixing to get into the industrial development game.

Read my form letter. Dear Industrial Tycoon (fill in name and company here): As you know, Georgia is going bonkers buying up Mega-Sites and filling them up with original equipment manufacturers, so those of you who are late to the party are going to be out of luck when it comes to doing business in the No. 1 state of doing business in the free world. That’s where I come in.

Welcome to my formal invitation to you to bid on Georgia’s first Mini-Site, aka the Whitten Side-Yard Mini-Site. It’s a ½ half (more or less) acre site ready to build on and move on in on, once you knock down a hundred or so trees – I suspect a crew of motivated workers could have it smooth as a baby’s bottom in a couple days.

I.e., if speed to market is your gig you can’t get to a market speedier than this. Or maybe you can and we just don’t know about it.

As for markets, just down the road we have a Kroger, a Walmart, a Publix and a Food Lion. This site is also within three miles of not one but two railroad tracks, and within a mile of a state highway with easy access to the Savannah port, I-95, the Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport, I-16 and Highway 80 – for those truckers who feel the need to dodge the scales.

The Mini-Site is also within a three-mile radius of several new warehouse parks, an elementary school, various convenience stores, a number of churches, strip malls, body shops, mini storage facilities and a car wash.

The site is awash with history – the oldest planned subdivision in the county is within a five-minute jog on creaky knees – and wildlife. Not long ago a couple of imported monkeys got loose near here, and the immediate vicinity is routinely the final resting place of various poor mammals and reptiles uprooted from their previous habitat by development and promptly squashed on our excellent road system.

What’s more, zoning shouldn’t be a problem.

While the Mini-Site is currently zoned residential, it hasn’t stopped landscapers and mechanics and others from operating loud businesses from their homes. Some may even be licensed, should you want to follow the rules.

We are surrounded by warehouses and more are said to be on the way, whether we want them there or not. You may welcome them in order to have plenty of available warehouse space in which to park your product, should you be so inclined.

Granted, ½ acre is not much, but it’s the only land on the Whitten Tract not currently in use (the Whitten home and shed and garden and septic tank sits on or in an additional half-acre and some change adjoining the Mini-Site).

However, it is the owner’s assertion, or would be if she knew I was doing this, that while she may not own a great width and breadth of property, it goes up vertically on all sides as far as the eye can see.

Therefore, suggested environmentally sound vertical industries perfect for this Mini-Site include a rocket farm, the manufacturing of utility poles, a trampoline testing system, and many other forms of vertical industrial application we haven’t thought of yet.

Parking may be already available on various driveways in the area for a workforce secondto- none, at least when they’re sober and not vaping or playing blackjack on their phones.

What else? Utilities: Georgia Power provides power and internet, phone and cable is through Comcast.

The Mini-Site already includes a private well, and the owner (that’s my wife) and her husband (that’s me) recently invested in a new pump after the old one started making a weird racket. So far so good.

Serious inquiries only. Bring cash. Your warm and welcoming buddy Jeff Whitten Factotum Servus Uxor Whitten Side-Yard Mini-Site.

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