AC repair inSavannah, GA

SAVANNAH ? A privately owned marine shipping terminal is planned along the Savannah River at a once-polluted site downstream from Georgia Ports Authority facilities, a multibillion-dollar project that has drawn objections and suspicion from state officials at the nation’s third-busiest port complex.

The SeaPoint Industrial Marine Terminal features more than a half-mile of riverfront and sits more than 5 miles closer to the Atlantic Ocean than the sprawling Ports Authority terminals located west of downtown Savannah. Engineers are designing a dock wall to serve a facility fit to handle a “broad range of maritime transported goods and materials,” with construction expected to begin later this year.

SeaPoint’s owner, Savannah businessman Reed Dulany, is seeking a tenant for the 226-acre site and is building the berth infrastructure to make the property more attractive.

SeaPoint’s cargo mix could include containers, which has drawn the Ports Authority’s ire.

Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution

The Ports Authority is currently expanding capacity by converting one multiuse property, Ocean Terminal, into a container-only site and building another container-specific facility on land nearby. President and CEO Griff Lynch told the authority board this week about plans to invest $4.2 billion on expansion over the next decade.

Georgia’s ports are huge economic drivers. The Savannah terminals and other Ports Authority facilities support 561,000 jobs across the state and contribute $59 billion annually to Georgia’s gross domestic product, a recent study showed. The ports’ business has nearly doubled over the past decade.

The Ports Authority’s stated reason for protesting development of a container terminal at the SeaPoint site is not concern over competition for business but the effect of SeaPoint-related rail and road traffic on the Savannah community. If built, cargo-carrying trucks and trains would have to travel through the densest parts of Savannah, including its bustling tourist district, to reach connecting interstates and rail lines west of the city.

ExplorePorts CEO: Georgia to be a 'national gateway' for shipping

The Ports Authority’s pushback has already nixed one tentative deal to build a container terminal on the site. As plans for the ship berth begins, there remains uncertainty about what kind of user — a manufacturer, a bulk cargo trader, a logistics company or a container terminal operator — would be best for the site.

Interest in the property is high, with the Savannah Economic Development Authority confirming that at least three suitors are considering the site. None of the prospects are in the container shipping business.

Those potential tenants were drawn to what SEDA President and CEO Trip Tollison described as a “monumental project” because of a hard-to-find combination of attributes. The property is large and zoned for heavy industry, and it is located in a tax-friendly federal opportunity zone with most of the necessary infrastructure and deepwater access.

“There is no other site like it in the Southeast,” Tollison said. “You can do so many things there that you just can’t do anywhere else.”

Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Vision for a ‘flexible canvas’

SeaPoint’s proximity to the ocean is its greatest selling point.

The project is farther east than the state-owned terminals and downstream from the Talmadge Bridge, an impediment to a growing number of ships too tall to squeeze under its span. The Georgia Department of Transportation recently started a project to raise the bridge’s roadway by as much as 20 feet and has future plans to replace the bridge either with a new, much-higher span or a tunnel under the Savannah River ? initiatives championed by the Ports Authority.

ExploreTalmadge Bridge to be replaced. The cost? $2 billion

SeaPoint’s location east of the bridge prompted the Ports Authority to study the site for a container terminal, even signing a purchase option for the property in 2017.

The authority later abandoned the idea, citing an estimated $4.2 billion cost as well asconcerns about the difficulty in creating a ship-turning basin near the site and the impact of port-related truck and rail traffic on downtown Savannah. Without a turning basin near SeaPoint, container ships would have to sail upriver to the Garden City Terminal to be spun around, negating one of the downriver advantages of a location avoiding the Talmadge Bridge.

The Ports Authority wasn’t the only prospect for the site, and Dulany had been marketing it for a variety of uses. The challenge at the time, though, was the property’s condition.

Credit: Stephen B. Morton for the AJC

Chemical processors had manufactured titanium dioxide, a whitening chemical used in products such as toothpaste and foods, on the site for half a century. The last operator, Tronox, went bankrupt in 2010, and the federal government declared the property one of the most polluted wastelands in the nation and unfit for redevelopment without extensive remediation.

“The site looked so bad,” Dulany said. “It was like walking somebody through a derelict house and telling them your vision for a restoration. Some people can see it, but most can’t.”

The contamination was so extensive Dulany and other prospective buyers had to be vetted by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Justice. The remediation, completed in 2022, cost $38 million.

As crews cleaned up the site, Dulany secured a permit for SeaPoint that would allow for the construction of a ship berth. SeaPoint is a “flexible canvas” meant to be as attractive to as many prospective tenants as possible, Dulany said.

He envisions the property being developed into a combination marine terminal, manufacturing facility and logistics hub, with the buyer needing onsite access to a ship berth.

SeaPoint also has the potential to be an environmentally friendly terminal, with an existing solar farm and sulfuric acid processing plant producing enough electricity to make the site energy neutral.

Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution

A ‘relief valve’ for the Ports Authority

Container shipping companies recognized the site’s advantages, and at least two expressed interest in developing the property for that use. A private container terminal locating close to a state ports authority facility is not unprecedented. The ports in Baltimore, New Orleans and Norfolk have both private and public terminals.

But the Ports Authority expressed concerns about SeaPoint at a time of expansion for the state complex. Its Savannah-based terminals handled 5.4 million equivalent container units last year, and the Ports Authority is expanding capacity to 10 million containers, all at a time while SeaPoint is marketing its site as capable of moving 2 million units a year.

The Ports Authority’s Lynch sent a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers in September 2022 protesting SeaPoint’s permit, which focused on bulk and breakbulk cargo, defined as goods that do not fit in shipping containers.

SeaPoint’s request, Lynch wrote, made no direct mention of pursuing container business and did not include impact studies on road and rail traffic — major considerations at SeaPoint’s location, which would direct trucks and trains through Savannah.

In an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Lynch said he was not averse to SeaPoint receiving a permit, but he said that the private port wasn’t being held to the same standard as the Ports Authority.

“We could never do what was done there. We would never even try to do it because I wouldn’t want to sleep with that,” Lynch said. “I would not want to tell a federal authority I’m going to do something and do something completely different.”

The Ports Authority’s protests contributed to the Army Corps suspending SeaPoint’s permit and mandating that Dulany apply for a permit modification in order to develop the site as strictly a container terminal.

Dulany initially contested the Army Corps’ interpretation but later agreed to abide by the original language of the permit, with the focus on a variety of cargo. SeaPoint’s permit was restored June 1, 2023, and planning for the berth wall commenced.

In an interview, Dulany clarified his intentions in seeking a container terminal developer for SeaPoint.

“A container terminal here would never be a significant competitor to the Port of Savannah,” Dulany said. “It was meant to be supplemental, a relief valve that doesn’t cost the taxpayers a dime, and because it is private investment, would generate tax revenue.”

Dulany estimates the future user of the marine terminal will make at least a $2 billion investment.

“We’re ready to return this property to productive use,” he said.

The Chatham County Board of Commissioners established a new non-emergency call center aimed at reducing the burden of high volume to the Chatham County 911 Center.

The board's action at its meeting Friday will create six new full-time positions including a non-emergency communications manager. The creation of the new call center will cost $385,446 from the county's general fund reserves for fiscal year 2024.

"It will help with vacancies and help us set up our center to take non-emergency phone calls," said Chatham County Manager Michael Kaigler.

New non-emergency call center to help address 911 complaints

The creation of the non-emergency line comes as the county has been inundated with complaints due to unanswered calls and long dispatch wait times, according to reporting by the Savannah Morning News.

The county's 911 call center began operations in October 2023, but a combination of staffing shortages and a large number of calls has hampered the center's efficiency, according to the reporting.

“I’m receiving, for the first time since I've been a commissioner, complaints about 911," said District 1 Commissioner Helen Stone recently told the Savannah Morning News.

Kaigler said the new call center's purpose will be similar to the City of Savannah's 311 system, which is for issues with city services such as parking, water and trash.

Stone said she hopes the new call center will also help shortages for the 911 line. Kaigler said the goal is to have the non-emergency call takers eventually be trained to move up to emergency calls.

The center's establishment creates five lead call taker jobs in addition to the non-emergency communications manager. The call takers will have a minimum starting salary of $42,338, and the manager position's minimum salary is $46,309.

Kaigler said the county is looking into making the non-emergency number shorter than a typical seven-digit phone number, that way residents could easily commit it to memory. The key is to avoid a number easily confused with the city's 311, Kaigler said.

"We desperately need a shorter telephone number, one that can stick in people's minds," Stone said.

Evan Lasseter is the city and county government reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at ELasseter@gannett.com.

For the Savannah Morning News

There are numerous high quality works featured in Boundless, an invitational group show that, according to the press release, “seeks to amplify Black voices.” Visitors will certainly wish to check out paintings by local stalwarts Bobby Bagley, Nae’Keisha Jones and Calvin Woodum, as well as one of the pieces Tafy LaPlanche included in her highly acclaimed Telfair Museums’ Boxed In/Break Out installation a few years back (spoiler alert: It’s bigger than I remembered).

But the real stars of the show are the sculptural heads of hair created by recent SCAD fibers grad Mia Crews, part of her series Dear, Dark & Lovely.

“It’s such a huge topic within blackness, not even just Black women,” noted CAC Gallery head Antonia Larkin. “The topic of hair, the topic of hair being presentable to the masses, has been a difficult conversation in the Black community, what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable. I love seeing that artists are bringing it to their work.”

Crews isn’t the only one in the show looking at Black hair: In total, four of the eight artists featured are contending with the topic. But her take feels unique. Each piece is essentially a foam mannequin head covered in yarn, but while the tools she used to enact her vision look simple on paper, the ideas contained within are deeply complex and important.

“Dear, Little Black Girls Who Wear Barrettes,” for instance, recreates a hairstyle traditionally donned by young black girls, often against their will, according to both Larkin and the artist herself.

“I wore this hairstyle, and I hated this hairstyle,” Crews stated. “I went to a pretty mixed school, and you see the way other people’s mothers style their hair, and you kind of want that. But then you realize your mom styles your hair this way every morning.”

And then there’s “Dear, Black Women Keep Your Crown.”

“This is about the history of Black women’s hair,” Larkin explained of the piece. “Dark and Lovely is a relaxer company. The head looks like the inside of a body, endometrial tissue, cancerous tissue, because they have found in recent years that relaxers have caused reproductive issues for women.”

The hair falling off is the third-degree burns,” added the artist, referencing the patch of discolored hair clinging to the top of the sculpture. “Because relaxers are a chemical treatment, if you leave them on for too long it will burn your hair off, and it will burn your scalp.”

“It’s heavily advertised to black women,” Crews continued, a fact easily verified with a quick Google search. “It’s something that can ‘solve their problems’ of having ‘unmanageable hair’ or make their hair ‘silky smooth.’ It’s about pressure to conform, about how that leads to using relaxers, and how that leads to cancer.”

Important stuff from the young artist, a depth of conception that she more than backs up with the work.

The Savannah Cultural Arts Center will hold an artist talk for the exhibition at 6 p.m., on February 8, 201 Montgomery St.

Dripping Crown Chronicles by Zay Hutchins at The Sentient Bean, through March 7th

The Sentient Bean might be a coffee shop, but it’s also one hell of a place to see art. Zay Hutchins’ Dripping Crown Chronicles continues the Forsyth Park-adjacent cafe’s run of excellent exhibitions, bringing the artist back to where he originally debuted the first two iterations of his “Dripping” series.

“As heavy is the head who wears the crown, the dripping crown is a personal trademark that inspires me to create art that tell stories of the good, the bad, and the provocative of what a modern day neighborhood King or Queen goes through to obtain said crown,” Hutchins explained to me via Messenger. “Even if the crown isn’t present within the painting, there’s still the downward dripping effect or technique that I use within all of my paintings that gives you a clue that the crown is somewhere up above.”

The “up above” plays a major role in the collection of new works the painter and tattoo artist has chosen for this show: Winged black youths soar in “Fly or Fall,” a piece that, to me, looks to be at least partly inspired by the Miles Morales animated Spider-Man movies; while “Cloud Surfers” is, quite literally, young black men and women surfing through the clouds.

Those familiar with Hutchins’ two previous Sentient Bean shows will no doubt recognize his color palette, use of both spray paint and acrylic, and the characteristic style that he employs in his figure work, not to mention the drips. But each of those exhibitions featured personal heroes who had things to say that the artist felt needed to be amplified through his work.

With Dripping Crown Chronicles, Hutchins has dumped text altogether, focusing entirely on sending a visual message. Instead of presenting his audience with the things that have inspired him, the artist has decided to use his own experience and visual language to inspire others. One can’t help wonder if it might have something to do with him having spent the last year preparing for, and then contending with, his first child.

“As an artist, she has influenced me to be more introspective and has pushed me to chronicle the feelings and thoughts about the world that keep me up at night,” he explained.

Apparently Hutchins strategy for dealing with it all is to elevate the characters in his paintings above the fray, a message we could all use in this day and age.

The Savannah Bananas open the 2024 season on Thursday, Feb. 8. Tickets for their 80-game schedule are available at StubHub, Seat Geek and Vivid Seats.

The team has its roots in the Coastal Plain League, an invitation-only collegiate summer league with more than a dozen teams in the Carolinas, Georgia and Virginia. Like other such leagues it’s a bridge between college play and the minor leagues.

The Bananas are known for their offbeat marketing and fan-friendly approach, which have reinvigorated interest in the game in a coastal city where public interest and minor-league options had petered out. (Sound familiar?) Left to their own devices they go into full “BananaBall” mode for exhibition events. “BananaBall is a fast-paced, action-packed style of baseball with rules that include no bunting, no walks, a two-hour time limit, fans catching foul balls for outs, batters stealing first base, and a one-on-one tiebreaker showdown at the end of the game.”

Check out the schedule of the U.S. Banana Ball tour:

Here’s where to get tickets:

StubHub - search by date

Seat Geek - search by date

Vivid Seats - search by date

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Students at the Savannah College of Art and Design are making a difference for one therapeutic riding program

BY Kendall Westgate

In the fall of 2023, the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) announced a collaboration between the college’s Design for Good Initiative and the Faith Equestrian Therapeutic Center to create a master plan for the center. This included drawings of a new barn, designing a new logo, and creating wayfinding signs accessible to riders with disabilities.

This project began when Faith Equestrian, a non-profit therapeutic riding organization, voiced the need for a larger, safer barn. Fifteen students from SCAD were selected for this course, which included equestrian studies, graphic design, illustration, industrial design and architecture majors; the students created different teams for the different tasks.

“Since my major is in illustration, I was placed on a team that focused on designing a new logo for the center,” says senior illustration major and equestrian minor Alexandria Hurd. “My primary challenge centered around creating a design that was not only unique but also accurately portrayed the essence of Faith Equestrian. This meant creating a design that catered to diverse age groups and all who benefit from therapeutic riding.”

Hurd also works at Faith Equestrian, where she obtained her certifications through PATH Intl. as a therapeutic riding instructor and assistant barn manager. She works under Faith Equestrian program director Elizabeth Todd.

“Something that truly impacted me was the final night, where we presented all of the final deliverables of the project. Our client and my boss, Elizabeth Todd, thought that we were just creating a barn design and a new logo,” Hurd says. “Little did she know we also designed, and SCAD provided, a full year’s worth of newly branded stationery materials, volunteer t-shirts, staff polos, hats, volunteer appreciation materials, as well as accessible pasture signage, wayfinding signs, stall signs, and an Instagram-able wall banner. We wanted to keep it a surprise and working with Elizabeth everyday made it a difficult secret to keep.”

The course allowed students to gain hands-on experience relating to their major.

“The knowledge from the curriculum of the equestrian studies program at SCAD equipped me with the skills and tools needed when thinking critically and making decisions,” senior industrial design major and equestrian studies and service design minor Sophia Valle sats. “For example, having had an equine health-based class I was able to make decisions that benefited the horses, plus having had a facility design class I had the knowledge needed to make important decisions when designing the barn. The depth of the understanding these classes provided helped me be effective in my decisions and design.”

The collaboration also allowed Faith Equestrian to expand their business. Students worked to provide them with a brand that embraces their welcoming and safe place.

“My favorite part about this project was being able to use all my knowledge and passion in order to create something that can truly change lives,” Valle says. “Seeing the details we placed, imagining what it could be like, and delivering something I was proud of meant the world to me. There was nothing like seeing the smiles of all those involved and the happiness our client showed at our delivery.”