SPLOST project can help grow part of CSRA

Augusta-Richmond County Commissioners are preparing to finalize the list of projects for Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) 9. The initial wish list of projects totaled more than one billion dollars. County Administrator Tameka Allen whittled it down to $426 million over seven years, and the tax will be collected.

One of the projects that made Allen’s list would have a substantial impact on developing South Richmond County.

The Augusta Economic Development Authority (AEDA) is requesting $25 million to extend residential, commercial, and industrial sewer capacity through South Augusta.

“You want to see the quality of life growth, but infrastructure (sewer capacity) simply ends,” AEDA President Cal Wray told ABD. “You look at where it ends on Dean’s Bridge Road. You look at where it ends on Windsor Spring, where it ends on Peach Orchard, and where it ends on Mike Padgett. This is a 20-30-year fix. This is the first step in that.”

The funds will be used for a pump station, gravity, and 24” force mains. It will run from Little Spirit Creek Basin to North McCombs Road, extending service to the proposed McCombs Road mega-site for industrial development.

Although reaching the McCombs Road site is the end goal, it is not the only benefit to extending the service.

“That’s part of the reason the design and the route are not just to look at industrial, it’s to look at retail, commercial, and, most importantly, residential. So, people who are working in those jobs have a place close by,” Wray explained.

Davis Beman, Principal of the Beman Group Real Estate, said utility service is needed to jump-start a lot of projects, and that can be achieved by piggybacking on the utilities being developed for industrial projects.

“If you can bring in utilities attached to one specific development, in this case something that economic development or the city is driving, then there is likely a myriad of areas where a private developer, whether it’s commercial, retail, or residential developments, can tap into that sewer and it mitigates their cost,” he said. “Right now, you may not be able to do anything in these areas, because septic and certain uses would not allow versus using this project to bring in the infrastructure that’s needed to jump start one program that aligns with growth and lower cost of development.”

Wray said this is a step in making industrial development palatable for the public.

“Some of them are saying, ‘We don’t want more industrial’, but it’s not just about industrial. This is about industrial helping to pay for it with the taxes generated there. How do commercial and retail, and, most importantly, the residential get opened up with the assistance of all of those being put together, because you can’t just run sewer out for residential? You have to have other drivers, because residential sewer doesn’t pay for itself.”

Beman said when developers look for a site, they want to be able to meet a certain density threshold. To do that, a site needs to be supported by utilities, making it more cost-effective for the developer.

“The more rooftops you get in, the more retail is going to be drawn to that area, and you have kind of a live-work-play environment. A developer is going to be more attracted to a lower cost, but also a lower logistical barrier to entry. So, anything that the city can mitigate on the front end to provide to future developers, meaning it could be residential, commercial, office, retail, that’s going to be the catalyst to grow off of this industrial development,” he said.

The AEDA presentation to the commission is at

https://www.augustaga.gov/DocumentCenter/View/19622/SPLOST-9-AEDA.

The full list being recommended by the county administrator is at

https://www.augustaga.gov/DocumentCenter/View/19626/Administrator-Office-SPLOST-9-Recommendation?bidId=

While the big picture is the impact extending sewer service will have on overall development, the bigger catalyst is to reach the McCombs Road site. Doing so will benefit both Richmond County and Burke County. We’ll break that down in part two.

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