andremurra

So it seems that in the first 45 days of this year, unincorporated Bulloch County has already issued 189 single-family unattached unit (houses) permits. Last year only saw 91 in the first 45 days. Should this trend continue, Bulloch will see about 1200 new homes, double our last record. Unincorporated Chatham County has been estimated to have just over 200 new-home permits issued for the first two months, so it seems that Statesboro is competing on a Savannah scale for new residents. For February, Bulloch County has six new residential subdivisions: Arlington Farms, Beaumont Phase II, The Hammocks, Spenway, Southern Point, and Westway. At this time, there are an additional seven new sudivisions working their way through the approval process.

Statesboro recieves the Distinguished Budget Presentation Award by the Government Finance Officers Association of the United States and Canada. http://www.statesboroherald.com/news/article/2356/

Brad Paisley plays Paulson - April 27, 8pm For all you country music fans out there, Brad Paisley is playing at Georgia Southern for the Spring Concert. Tickets will go on sale to Students for field access on Feb. 26 thru March 2, faculty/staff and students can purchase general admission tickets starting on March 3, and the general public can being purchasing on March 26. Tickets are selling on etix.com. GSU generally has one major concert per semester, although we havent had any for a while. Kanye West broke the bank when the university almost spent about $250,000 to organize that concert, but he broke the signed contract because he was basically scared - since this was after his comments were made which started a lot of racist drama in Statesboro between various groups of people. Kanye stated that he broke the contract because he does not do open air stadium concerts, when he had just performed three the week before. There were even internet sites started that ordered for brutality toward white students if they showed up at the concert. The developers of the websites were suspended from GSU. So obviously, cancelling was in the university's best interest. After many students felt let down with no fall concert scheduled, the university booked Ciara at the last minute for $50,000 - but that concert was a flop due to the 15 degree weather the night of the event. About 1,000 students showed up. The 3 Doors Down concert the semester before, however, was a mild success with over 8,000 in attendance. Im not particularly looking forward to a redneck gathering, but I want to support the local entertainment scene so I am planning to attend the Paisley concert. Wanda Sykes Tours 'Boro Wanda Sykes will be bringing laughs to GSU Hanner Fieldhouse on March 24th at 8pm. Students can purchase tickets starting on Feb. 14 and the general public can being purchasing on Feb. 24th. $17M Secured for Additional Construction Progess is going well on the $7M Fine Arts Phase III addition to the Betty Foy Sanders Department of Art Building which includes a new 300-seat Black Box Theatre. Also another $5M has been secured from the Board of Regents for the Phase IV addition to the Arts Building as well as $5M for the renovation and addition of the Foy Fine Arts Building. I have not seen any renderings of the Phase IV or the Foy projects so this will be interesting. Phase II of the $25M Henderson Library renovation and expansion is going along smoothly.

This thread is devoted to all that matters to Georgia Southern University. Topics may include anything that is directly affected by or that directly affects the university including Expansion Projects/Updates, Economic Impact on Area, University Politics, the Strategic/Master Plan, The Campaign for National Distinction, Demographics & Statistics, Town & Gown, etc. As many people know and understand, Georgia Suothern University is a completely different community within itself. In many ways the university is disconnected from the City of Statesboro while the two entities are team players in other areas. Development of the university is very important to Statesboro and the region, so this thread will deal with the projects and advances that are specifically relating to the Big Blue.

Charleston-style Village Proposed at pond property between Bypass & Cawana I posted about this earliar, but I was wrong about the story being in an upcoming city council minutes. Actually this development hasnt been proposed to the city or county yet. The developer who had earliar planned to build townhomes around the pond met with residents of Bradford Place to propose another idea and hopefully get their blessing before bringing it to local government. Now the property is being planned to host a Charleston-style village of sixty multi-colored 1400+ square foot homes. The lots will be small in this exclusive community and neighborhood services will cost approximately $100 per month (for street lights, landscape maintenance, etc.). Some of the homes will have small backyards, and the homes built on the pond will have a pond deck extending from the back doors over the water. The way I understood it was that the pond properties would have the homes perhaps on stilts so that the back door would be right above the pond. Im just hoping they do a water-drainage study about that property before placing the homes, because I remember during El Nino' the pond completely filled up and spilled over on the Southwest corner facing the bypass. FYI, for everyone not familiar with this property, the is not an actual pond we are talking about. The current land owners sold their dirt in the early 90's to build the 4-lanes of the bypass almost completely encircling Statesboro. I believe the dirt sold for $2M and as you can imagine the DOT dug what looks like a crater in the middle of their property. There happens to be a natural spring located in the hole and over the next decade, the "crater" started filling with water bit by bit. When El Nino' hit in the late nineties, the hole filled completely up and overflowed into the adjacent properties. So this property does not actually contain a pond, but a DOT-made giant hole that happened to uncover a spring and eventually filled up with rainwater. It is interesting to note though, that from the banks of the "pond", the water is a beautiful crystal turquoise blue color, similar to the color of Pensecola's ocean. You cant really see the intensity of the color from the bypass. I know the owners and they get asked all the time if they put dye into the water, and they say that the color comes from the natural spring. They have wanted to beach the "pond" in the past and sell the property to develop a senior-living community. Regardless, I think the Charleston-style community is a great fit for that property and will look beautiful from the bypass. Side Note Also, I have also been informed that the Little Lotts Developers who are doing the 80 acres off Cawana Road next to Bradford Place actually own all the property (the fields) from that location to Grove Lakes. From what I understand, this 80 acre development is the experiment phase. If the subdivision does well, they plan to develop several more phases untill all the land is developed from Bypass/Cawana to Grove Lakes area. We are talking about literally hundreds of homes. Thats all for now.

Another new subdivision going up on Cawana Road - I dont have the exact details, but it should be in an upcoming City Council minutes, or Bulloch County minutes. This subdivision will be directly across the street from Bradford Place, where earliar a development of duplex townhomes was proposed. This new development will be a "village" type community of homes with many amenities provided such as landscape maintenance, etc. This is the pond property.

I saw a commercial for Barberitos last night.

I think we can obtain the #5 spot sooner than we think. Illinois, Penn, Mich & Ohio are all clumped right there waiting for us to take the lead. I can definately see us becoming #5, and Florida obtaining #3. That would be nice to be situated next to NY in ranks and FL in geography!

Thats sad about the tacky Walgreens. I have a lot of family in Hartwell, and although its not the most exciting place to visit, it is a wonderful community with a lot of potential - especially as Lake Hartwell eventually will become another resort destination. I cant believe they allowed that, they just finished remodelling their downtown streetscape.... hmm. That doesnt make sense.

Im not sure what intersection your talking about when you refer to Hwy 301/Brannen Road - especially since The Exchange is located no where near Hwy 301. I am disappointed that two hotels are not being announced, but I am glad that they claim that one "really nice" hotel is coming. Really nice for Statesboro, could mean anything unfortuneatly, but Im hoping for the best. I dont think we need ANY traffic lights near market district. That Brampton/Fair intersection is only one of the most easiest left-turn intersections in Statesboro - the six lanes make the area flow very smoothly. The bypass certainly doesnt need anymore stops in my opinion. The whole point of the bypass was to be a quicker route around Statesboro. Its about the same travel time now as it is to go straight through these days - but it did bring a lot of commercial development, so thats good. We'll get another bypass eventually.

I dont know if it will be the largest convention held in Statesboro. Maybe the largest convention held without the help of GSU... I used to work for reservations at Georgia Southern. We regularly have some pretty large conventions that people generally dont know about. Girls State/Boys State is pretty large - the Ga State Patrol Convention - the G8 Summit Law Enforcement Workshop - Georgia Chamber of Commerce Convention - Im not sure if those are the right names for the conventions but I remember they would come every year. Also GSU's regular non-convention events are pretty large too such as SOAR which averages 2,000-4,000 and occurs about 12 times during the summer, then the open-houses are way larger than SOAR. Of course football games and homecoming events are enourmous. Graduation Ceremonies are most likely the largest single-day events held in Statesboro (Im guessing larger than the fair). The Fall Commencement graduates 1,000 students in front of all their friends and family members. The Spring Commencement graduates 2,000 students in front of their friends and family. I wonder where they are planning to host the large convention this fall? The Performing Arts Center main auditorium only seats 825, but has several 600-seat ballrooms. Hanner Fieldhouse seats 5,500 I think. Russell Union Ballroom seats 700 at max and the 1085 (the theatre) seats around 450. There are dozens 150 and 300 seat lecture halls scattered around campus. The Williams Center Dining Hall seats about 700 too I think. Speaking of meetingspace, Georgia Southern is preparing to build a new $60-million Student Union. To give you an idea of how large that is, the hospital cost $65-million.

Wow. Im amazed that the Phase II of the new Statesboro High School lowest bid came out at $38,780,000. Thats exciting.

Today while driving I noticed a sizeable property being cleared at the intersection of Burkhalter and Pretoria-Rushing across the street from Brookwood and the Recycling Center. It looks too small to be a subdivision but its a pretty large tract. I wonder what it is.