|
Park still on drawing board
Mon, Oct 31, 2005
No construction date set at Steamboat City in northern Glynn By CASEY STEWART The Brunswick NewsThe wait for a theme park in Glynn County will have to continue.Steamboat City, the theme park proposed for the area of Georgia 99 just east of Interstate 95 in northern Glynn County, is still on the drawing board with no new starting date for construction.The most recent start date given for the project was early 2006, but that's not going to happen."We are currently talking with a group that would be coordinating the operations and development (of the current plans) of the theme park," said Will Pitts, president of W.G. Pitts Co. and general partner of Steamboat City Development Co. The Steamboat City Development Co. is trying to develop a 800-acre parcel that will include a 150-acre theme park and a 125-acre recreational vehicle parking and camp ground. It also will include 100 acres for commercial development and 100 acres for hotels and condominium complexes. This is not the first time plans for the area between Interstate 95 and Highway 99 have stalled. The same site was originally slated to be part of a 2,000-plus acre wildlife theme park under the ownership and direction of television host and animal lover Jim Fowler in 2001. In December 2001, the park property changed hands and left the wildlife theme in limbo. Purchased by a group of local investors under the name Wildlife Realty Associates, the park has been recast from a 2,000-acre wildlife safari park to a much smaller Georgia heritage theme park to the 800-acre Steamboat City, a theme park based on a world when steamboats traveled inland rivers. Pitts said the theme park will happen."We are the master planners of the development," said Pitts. "The partnership (of owners) is still enthused about making this theme park a reality." Tony Sammons, chair of the Brunswick and Glynn County Development Authority, is eager for the day that the plans come to fruition."We understand at the development authority that the project is still a go, and they still have the plans in place to make the park happen," he said.
|
