The city of Statesboro recently accepted the award of a $2.12 million grant being routed through the Georgia Department of Transportation to build linear park features in the Creek on the Blue Mile project.

Originally, this was federal money allocated to Georgia under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, or ARPA, specifically as “Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Funds.” The Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget then took applications for a grant program called “Improving Neighborhood Outcomes in Disproportionately Impacted Communities.”

City Council voted 4-0 on Feb. 7 to accept the $2.12 million grant, also committing the city to provide a local match of $530,000, or 20% of the total funding.

“When we say ‘Creek on the Blue Mile,’ these are actually funds that will be used to help improve the park area of the project,” City Manager Charles Penny told the council members.

He said the city has until the end of 2026 to spend the money.

Matched from loan

The $530,000 local match funding can be drawn from the city’s $15.5 million “GEFA loan fund,” Penny said, referring to a low-interest line of credit from the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority established specifically for the creek project.

The resolution presented to council actually referred to T-SPLOST, or the Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, as the source of the local matching funds and to the grant source as the Georgia DOT’s Transportation Alternative Grant Program, which is apparently being used as a conduit for ARPA money. The resolution stated that the grant will be “for trail and recreation improvement projects” within Statesboro. A cover memo from city Public Works and Engineering Director John Washington identified the goal as “development of a linear park along the creek and tributary to provide pedestrian connectivity, create economic development opportunities, and promote recreation.” The memo also stated that the grant will be “for construction funds only.”

Previous funding

The $15.5 million GEFA line of credit was announced in Statesboro in late 2018 by then-Gov. Nathan Deal along with $5.5 million in direct state funding, both for the locally proposed Creek on the Blue Mile project.

Originally, a 26-acre lake or reservoir was to be created in the Upper Little Lotts Creek Basin on the west side of Statesboro by building a dam southeast from West Jones Avenue to South College Street near the railroad tracks. Officials suggested that a state park would be built at the reservoir.

But after the engineering team estimated the cost of the public infrastructure alone, including the dam and channel structures, at $44.6 million to $72.4 million, city officials accepted the engineers’ offer to change the plan for cost savings. With the reservoir and dam removed, the projected cost in public funds, in an August 2021 estimate, was reduced to $27.6 million.

From the Blue Mile of South Main Street eastward across the southern part of downtown, the creek’s channel would be deepened and a tiered structure created on both sides, passing under the bridges. The “linear park” space would consist of brick-look walkways and landscaping on these tiers with amenities such as ornamental lampposts and umbrellaed tables.

The under $30 million estimate did not include approximately $50 million in private business investment the Blue Mile Foundation hopes to lure to the area.

Boyum’s question

Two weeks ago when the new $2.12 million grant was presented for council’s approval, District 1 Councilman Phil Boyum noted that the city has never given its go-ahead for construction of the overall project. Penny had noted that, when the contracted engineering team led by the Freese and Nichols firm last reported to the council, the design work was 30% completed. He said it should be 60% complete at the next report.

“At what point, Mr. Penny, are we going to decide to move forward or not?” Boyum asked. “Because, I mean, we seem to be spending a lot of money on designing a project that may not generate the economic development that we think it will. Construction prices have gone up, and the size of the project has gone down, since the report.”

$3.55M in planning

As of March 2022, when the city agreed to pay the Freese and Nichols engineering and design firm, assisted by EMC Engineering Services, $2.65 million to complete the planning and design, the city had committed to spend $3.55 million toward preliminary aspects of the project.

This included the $2.65 million for the design phase, the original $832,000 authorized by the council in September 2019 for the feasibility study by the same engineering group and $65,000 authorized in April 2021 for a hydrology study of the floodplain.

The original $5.5 million grant was cited as the source, so the council has authorized spending  about two-thirds of it so  far on studies, engineering and design.

Penny’s reply

Replying to Boyum, Penny said he believes the council will arrive at a point where it can make a final decision on whether to proceed with building the public infrastructure for the creek project.

“I believe that at some point you do need to get to a place, but I think we have to finish the design first, and then there’s another side to the project that we’re not actually paying for,” Penny said. “There’s a part of the project for the private developers, and at some point, this year, the council should be receiving  a presentation from the Blue Mile Foundation.”

Penny also noted the stormwater management aspect of the project, which he said was reducing the size of the floodway so that more land is removed from the flood-prone area and can be developed.

“Before I recommend you move forward, I have to know, without a shadow of a doubt, first how we pay for it, and then the other side of it would be there’s going to be some debt, and how do we pay that debt,” Penny said.

But to this point all the costs, other than for staff time spent on the project, have been paid from a grant, he noted.

Boyum commented that the current plan removes “very little” land from the floodway, He argued that this creates little space for private investment and return on the city’s investment through growth in the tax base.

“There’s no reservoir, the floodplain benefit is greatly reduced, and (construction) costs have gone up nearly 40 percent, so at some point we’ve got to say, we’ve got to stop spending staff time and resources on something that would be, quite frankly, a very bad investment,” Boyum said. “We’re looking at spending $30 million or $40 million for $10 million in receipts over 30 years.”

Penny noted that many people have put a lot of time into planning for the project but said the city’s elected officials could halt it at any time if they wanted.

Wants to go big

A little while later, Boyum suggested that he would actually support a more ambitious version of the creek plan, including the reservoir that was removed. In fact, it was Boyum who eventually made the motion, seconded by District 3 Councilwoman Venus Mack, to accept the latest grant.

“I’m going to vote for this, because I believe in the project, but I believe in the project being bigger than we’re continuing to shrink it down and we’re continuing to minimize the impact. …,” Boyum said. “I’m thinking long-term; this is not short-term.”