The paper mill closed nearly 15 years ago and residents have since kept a wary, yet hopeful eye on the 722-acre site that, once redeveloped, will dictate the look and feel of this historic coastal town for decades to come.
The City Council is expected to rezone the site for industry Monday. A New York developer has big plans to transform the former Durango-Georgia Paper mill into a manufacturing and warehouse district with barges possibly transporting raw materials along the Atlantic coast.
But nobody, including city officials, can say what exactly will end up on the banks of the North River. Chris Ragucci, the developer, has rolled out a number of possible uses the past two years, worrying residents who fear the development could threaten the town’s reputation as a destination for tourists and retirees.
“This will more profoundly impact the future of St. Marys more than anything else,” said Alex Kearns, a writer and environmentalist who moved here from Canada a decade ago. “We’re a historic gateway to Cumberland Island. Now we’ll be known as the Port of St. Marys. We’re deliberately putting a bullet in the head of the golden goose.”
John Holman, the city manager, says whatever rises just beyond the historic district will be largely unobtrusive while boosting the local economy.
“If an industrial site is approved, it would allow for additional employment opportunities for high school and college students who will be able to come back to work in the community,” he said. “It will provide a synergy for our downtown and help spark redevelopment.”
Atlantans know St. Marys as the jumping-off point for the Cumberland Island National Seashore. An old port with a Savannah-style street grid, downtown was placed on the National Historic Register in 1976. Tourists and retirees, as well as the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, define St. Marys today.
The hulking factory at the edge of the historic district, opened in 1941, once lorded over St. Marys. The old Gilman Paper Mill was the biggest employer between Brunswick and Jacksonville, Fla., with 900 workers. The company manager, aka The Big Man, once boasted that the mill accounted for three-fourths of Camden County’s budget.
Locals learned to live with the rotten egg smell (“the smell of money”) and horrendous record of pollution. Discharges of chlorine, dioxin-laced sludge and acidic pulp byproducts, both inadvertent and planned, fouled the estuaries.
Matters didn’t improve when a Mexican company bought the mill out of bankruptcy in 1999. Faced with $100 million in equipment upgrades and $25 million in environmental cleanup, the mill closed for good in 2002. A Jacksonville developer bought it out of bankruptcy in 2005 with big plans for a marina and hundreds of pricey homes. But it too went bankrupt during the Great Recession.
“We need to get that eyesore cleaned up,” Reeney Adams, who supports the rezoning, told council members earlier this year. “Our quaint city will look like a ghost town if businesses continue to fail. St. Marys will wither without industries to support and sustain it.”
Chain-link fences surround the property pockmarked with red brick piles and industrial waste ponds. The site, though, is also home to the state’s second-largest rookery for endangered wood storks.
Change in plans
A trustee for the bankruptcy court contacted Ragucci’s Worldwide Group a couple of years ago. Ragucci’s bio says he helped redevelop a container terminal on Staten Island. The one-time attorney later worked on other industrial sites in New York and New Jersey.
Plans for the Port of St. Marys Industrial & Logistics Center initially called for a barge port, a small-scale liquified natural gas export facility and wood pellet, steel tank and aluminum manufacturing factories. Warehouses, rail and truck yards, and a 3,000-foot dock were also envisioned over 15 years. The barges, Ragucci said in an interview, could ferry agricultural and forest products to the deeper-water ports of Savannah and Jacksonville.
More than 5,000 jobs and $2.5 million in annual property taxes were projected.
Plans changed. Ragucci backed off the barge port in December and said the mix of industries was fluid. Opponents questioned whether out-of-state trash, toxic coal ash or medical waste would be shipped in.
Ragucci said he’s always pushed an industrial center and resident have nothing to fear.
“But, unfortunately, you can’t provide specific uses until you get the zoning changed, which will then allow us to aggressively market the site,” he added. “We’ve worked very closely with the county development authority and the state of Georgia economic development department. The state agrees with us that it’s a very favorable site for high-tech manufacturing with high-quality jobs.”
Adepartment spokeswoman said “we are not involved in this project.” Neither is the Georgia Ports Authority, whose executive director said the barge plan isn’t feasible.
Critics aren’t sure what to believe.
“It’s sort of like a shopping mall where you get your anchor stores lined up and then fill in the smaller stores,” said Bill Sapp, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “If he has anchor stores lined up, then he should make the community aware of that. Because he has not done that, it raises a lot of suspicions within the community that you don’t see in a typical rezoning.”
Sapp worked with city and county officials to incorporate 33 special conditions into the rezoning request. Coal ash, solid waste and liquified natural gas were prohibited. Barge traffic would be limited. No ships may engage in offshore fossil fuel exploration from the port. No structure may rise higher than 65 feet. The rookery must be protected.
City Council members, under the impression Ragucci accepted the conditions, scheduled a rezoning vote for April 4. But Ragucci balked, postponing the vote.
A compromise was worked out — the prohibitions against trash and coal ash remain, for example — and the deal is likely to pass Monday. Any major revision must receive the council’s blessing. Minor changes must also receive a special-use permit from the city.
“There are no smokestack industries allowed,” said Holman, the city manager. “And any development that comes in would need to get an approval, unless it’s a very vanilla industrial development. The special conditions will give the city sufficient control of the development.”
About the Author
