Criminal Defense Attorney in Bloomingdale, GA.

At the end of the current school year, the Bloomingdale Elementary School building will be demolished to make way for a completely new school facility, according to the Savannah Chatham County Public School System (SCCPSS).

Students and staff will relocate to a “swing site” during demolition and construction, which is slated to begin in September 2023 and finish July 2025. An exact location for the swing site has yet to be determined, according to district officials, but students will remain together and not be split up into different schools.

The school district will host a District 7 Town Hall meeting Nov. 17 at the Bloomingdale Elementary School at 6:30 p.m., where officials will provide additional information.

More:Bloomingdale has a new growth plan. What does this mean for future development in the city?

Bloomingdale Elementary, which serves about 380 pre-k through fifth grade students, is located at 101 East Main Street, just south of U.S. 80. The new school facility will be built on the same site.

The current elementary school building is about 60 years old and is in need of upgrades, according to the district’s project executive, Slade Helmly.

Critical systems have exceeded their useful system life, said Helmly. That includes the HVAC, electrical, fire protection, plumbing, architecture and technological infrastructure.

“You can imagine a school from 60 years ago needs big upgrades,” said Helmly, “It makes more sense to build new than renovate existing.”

Bloomingdale Elementary school was originally slated for renovations as part of ESPLOST IV plans. ESPLOST is a penny sales tax on goods and services purchased within the county that is used to fund capital improvement projects for the county school district. Extended through a voter referendum every five years, ESPLOST has generated more than $1 billion for public schools since its inception in 2006.

More:ESPLOST IV will be on the ballot for everyone in Chatham County on Nov. 2. But what is ESPLOST?

Original plans to repair Bloomingdale Elementary shifted when total costs for renovations exceeded 50% of costs to build a replacement facility, said SCCPSS spokesperson Sheila Blanco. At that rate, it would be more cost-effective to build an entirely new facility, said Blanco.

The exact cost for the new school building isn’t finalized, but Helmly puts construction for new facilities generally around $25 to $30 million. White Bluff Elementary, which was completed July of 2020 and serves about 650 students, cost $22.6 million to construct.

More:Port Wentworth Elementary to close in May while residents share concerns on its future use

At the Oct. 5 school board meeting, district officials approved transferring $28,705,000 from various ESPLOST IV accounts – specifically Pooler Elementary School and Bloomingdale Elementary School renovation accounts – to a new school replacement account. Construction for the replacement school will come entirely from ESPLOST funds.

As the project is still in its early stages, specific design plans have not been drawn up yet. According to the program schedule, the project is still in its programming phase, which will be followed by schematic development and design development in February 2023.

Once the baseline spaces have been established according to Georgia Department of Education standards, community meetings to solicit input from staff and community members and stakeholders will begin, said Helmly.

Nancy Guan is the general assignment reporter covering Chatham County municipalities. Reach her at nguan@gannett.com or on Twitter @nancyguann.

Bloomingdale City Council approved the first phase of a 4.5 million square foot warehouse project known as the Ottawa Farms Tracts during last Thursday’s council meeting. The large-scale, long-term project anticipates the building of nine warehouses on more than 400 acres of land over the course of the next decade.

McCraney Property Company, a Florida-based company that develops and manages commercial/industrial, office/flex, office and warehouse distribution properties, is the developer for the project. McCraney received approval for tract A, the first warehouse building comprising about 33 acres, located off of Bloomingdale Road and adjacent to the city’s main visitor attraction, the Ottawa Farms.

Story continues below.

The warehouse project stirred controversy in the small and quiet residential town when Ottawa Farms' owner, Pete Waller, requested that a significant portion of his agricultural land be rezoned to light industrial in 2019.

Previously:Industrial development proposed for Ottawa Farms site

The six-person council was evenly split on the rezoning decision, with then-mayor Ben Rozier breaking the tie with a yes vote. In a previous interview, Rozier told the Savannah Morning News that Waller had talked about possibly deannexing and incorporating his land into the neighboring city of Pooler if Bloomingdale did not approve the rezoning,

'It's in your blood': Ottawa Farms' Pete Waller reminisces on decades of farming in Chatham

Ottawa Farms encompasses nearly 800 acres of land south of residential neighborhoods near U.S. 80. About 150 acres will remain agricultural, according to previous interviews with Waller. The third-generation farmer recognizes residents’ desire to preserve the last-remaining farm in Chatham County, but he said the math is no longer there to maintain farmland in this region.

Skyrocketing property taxes have rendered the agricultural business unfeasible. To keep the land in his name, Waller is renting, not selling, the parcels to the warehouse business.

Before:Bloomingdale council: City 'not open for business' for warehouse, apartment development

Residents and city officials across western Chatham County are resisting the pressures of industrialization as the rapid growth of the Port of Savannah continues to bolster the logistics and manufacturing industries.

In January, Bloomingdale's council unanimously approved an eight-month moratorium on applications for industrial and multi-family developments while the city assesses its infrastructure capacity and ensures current land use falls in line with the city’s comprehensive plan.

Also:A second West Chatham city freezes industrial development. Why growth trends are troubling

More recently, Garden City followed suit by imposing its own moratorium on industrial rezoning applications, citing a need to increase residential builds in the industrial and commercial-heavy municipality.

Goals outlined in Bloomingdale’s 2021 comprehensive plan include preserving the small city charm by discouraging heavy industry and large, multifamily, high-density developments such as apartments, which would strain the city’s limited infrastructure capacity.

However, with the warehouse park in tow, city officials hope the project can be a financial windfall to the city of 2,800. Attracting light industrial and the jobs that come with it is also part of Bloomingdale’s long-term goals to sustaining the municipality's economy.

According to previous reporting from the Savannah Morning News, the $300 million investment would create upwards of 1,000 new jobs in a city with 300 to 500 jobs.

Nancy Guan is the general assignment reporter covering Chatham County municipalities. Reach her at nguan@gannett.com or on Twitter @nancyguann.

BLOOMINGDALE, Ga. (WSAV) – West Chatham County residents are voicing their concerns about the potential rezoning of land next to their neighborhood.

Off John Carter Road in Bloomingdale sits 630 acres of undeveloped land. It’s owned by the Savannah Economic Development Authority and officials said they intend for it to be a manufacturing park.

Residents who live next to the property said the project is already doing damage to their homes.

“My father is 85 years old and within about three to four weeks of the clearing of this property, we noticed differences in our homes and his septic tank would just pour water into it so we had to drop an actual pump in it to keep it operating,” said Cheryl Sanderlin, a resident for 30 years. “We used to have a lot of wildlife in our front yards, we could sit in that big window there and actually see deer eating in our front yards. We don’t see that anymore.”

Residents like Cheryl, many who have lived in the neighborhood for decades, said they feel blindsided and left out of the conversation.

“With our neighborhood backing up to it, with two schools nearby, with 10,000 more homes coming, we are definitely concerned on whether this is something that will make noise all night long, have lights all night long, continue to cause flooding issues,” Cheryl said.

On Saturday, officials from SEDA met with neighbors for the first time. Residents repeatedly asked why the group is trying to rezone the property from Industrial Light to Industrial Heavy, something they believe will only do more harm.

“Our response to that is to best place this manufacturing center, this Class A industrial manufacturing, to be prime real estate for high-wage jobs,” said Jesse Dillon, vice president for business development at SEDA. “Put us in the best possible competitive situation to attract high wages to the community.”

Dillion added that the organization has no intention to cause harm to neighbors. Residents are also calling for more transparency, claiming they were not properly notified of SEDA’s petition to change the zoning.

“There are three ways to notify property owners,” explained Harold Yellin, an attorney representing SEDA. “Advertising, which we did. Notice to neighbors within 300 feet, which we believe was done. And the signs, which we did according to state zoning procedure law. Notwithstanding that we’ll come back and do it again. If we can find property off-site that doesn’t even belong to us but the property owner says it’s OK, we’d otherwise be trespassing but we’re willing to put additional signs.”

Neighbors and SEDA officials said their meeting was productive and the start of finding a solution to make residents more comfortable.

But still, Cheryl is concerned about what will happen to the quiet, peaceful neighborhood she and her family have called home for 30 years.

“I mean, at a certain point can you sleep at night, will the lights be blaring through your window, will the noise be loud?”, she said. “I mean, at a certain point you have to weigh can you still live there?”

The Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission will take up the rezoning petition at its meeting on September 29th.

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Pete Waller is a business man by trade but a farmer by heart. The 89- year-old runs an insulation business where he earns most of his living, but his real pride and joy is cultivating the 150-acres of fertile soil that is Ottawa Farms, one of the last remaining farms in Chatham County.

Waller spends his mornings herding cattle, running the lengths of green pastures in his tractor and spitting chewing tobacco into a red Solo nestled in the cupholder of his truck.

He doesn’t need to be working out in the fields, but he does it anyway.

“I like to smell that dirt when you plow it up,” Waller chuckled. “I enjoy cutting that hay and rolling it back.”

He’s wearing a dress shirt and polka-dot suspenders. But for the purposes of farm work, he’s in denim jeans and sneakers.

“It’s in your blood, you can’t get it out.”

But Waller, a third-generation farmer, recognizes the changing agricultural landscape. He watched the 150 acres of land his grandfather first purchased in 1873 grow to around 800. Now he’s back to 150, as plans to lease and develop the remaining acreage into warehouses come to fruition.

Read more:'Check back in three years': Savannah's record growth exerts pressure on rural communities

“The math is not there to hold onto the land today,” said Waller, speaking of skyrocketing property values pushing out smaller-scale farmers like him. “It’s the writing on the wall.”

Waller, however, is business savvy. He said there’s no plans to sell the land outright as he still owns the parcels.

“You don’t sell the goose that lays the golden egg; we leased the goose,” Waller said with a laugh.

Before:Industrial development proposed for Ottawa Farms site

The fight to rezone the land from agricultural to industrial took nearly two years. At the end of that controversial battle in 2021, Waller entered into a contract with the Florida-based McCraney Property Company. Nearly 600 acres of land abutting the green plains of the farm will be razed and turned into warehousing, to the dismay of residents.

“Everybody don’t like change. They want to see a farm,” said Waller, “but they don’t own it … they don’t pay taxes on it.”

Waller stood watch as flocks of black and brown cattle roamed in the tall grass toward the shade of a tree draped in Spanish moss. The rule of thumb is you can’t fall in love with them, he said of the beef cattle.

Once the 10-year warehouse project is complete, the pasture will be gone.

"We saw what was happening"

Waller watched the region transform in the nearly nine decades he’s lived in the city of Bloomingdale. The area once bustled with dairies and vegetable patches. Families owned several acres to farm and raised their own small herd of cattle. In the ‘30s and ‘40s, he said, you either farmed or worked for the railroad.

“We didn’t have trucks coming from Florida bringing in vegetables,” said Waller. “Everything was grown here.”

When Waller took over the farm in his teens after his father’s death, the land had been in his family for at least 70 years. He quit high school and went to work in the shipyard as a machinist, hustling during the day and farming at night.

Even then, farm work was no way to earn money. He found himself in the insulation business. Then, by 23-years-old, he wound up overseeing 700 men at a cement company in North Carolina. Three years later, he returned home.

Waller started running his own insulation business in the early ‘60s while he still worked the farm. But the landscape was shifting.

More:Bloomingdale council: City 'not open for business' for warehouse, apartment development

“We saw what was happening,” he said, “after the I-95 went up.”

Pooler, still one of the fastest growing cities in the region, began to balloon.

Anticipating the risk of Bloomingdale being annexed into its neighboring cities, he, along with four other residents, worked to incorporate the town.

“I took the charter to Atlanta,” Waller said as he recalled his first ever plane trip.

In his office, he pointed to a black and white photo of himself, three other men and then-governor Jimmy Carter smiling with the charter in hand. In 1974, Bloomingdale was incorporated.

Inevitable change

Development continues to explode in the region, transforming the once-sprawling agricultural town. Manufacturing and logistics in the area boomed as the Port of Savannah expanded, growing into one of the busiest ports in the nation.

Today, industrialization is at the heart of residents’ concerns. For Bloomingdale, a city of about 2,600, existence is always in flux. City officials say they’re trying to balance the financial flush warehousing can bring with the quality of life of residents.

Waller knows farming isn’t what’s sustainable here. In 1957 he bought an acre of land for $57, he said. Now that same acre is worth $150,000. The writing is on the wall for all farmers. Even those more inland as growth spills into nearby counties.

Also:Bloomingdale council: City 'not open for business' for warehouse, apartment development

To further supplement his income, Waller opened up the fields to another kind of business – agritourism.

“We were doing this before we realized what it was called,” he said, “We plant about five acres of strawberries every year, three acres of blackberries and five acres of blueberries, all pick-your-own operations.”

The annual strawberry festival is set for this weekend – April 2nd-3rd – and normally attracts up to 10,000 people, said Waller.

Ottawa hosts other attractions as well, such as sunflower picking. For school field trips, he’s installed a giant metal slide, a note he took from the farms up in North Carolina. Nearby is a general store that sells farm-made goods.

A goat that pops its head over a wooden fence is, perhaps, the main attraction. Waller grabs a handful of tobacco and feeds it to him. The goat laps it up, its mouth grinding side to side with sounds of cows mooing in the distance.

“Back then we didn’t have to fence them in,” Waller recalled when his father was alive, “We used to have an open range. Where Home Depot is, we used to run the cows. Where Lowe’s is, we used to run the cows.”

Nancy Guan is the general assignment reporter covering Chatham County municipalities. Reach her at nguan@gannett.com or on Twitter @nancyguann.

Pete Waller is a business man by trade but a farmer by heart. The 89- year-old runs an insulation business where he earns most of his living, but his real pride and joy is cultivating the 150-acres of fertile soil that is Ottawa Farms, one of the last remaining farms in Chatham County.

Waller spends his mornings herding cattle, running the lengths of green pastures in his tractor and spitting chewing tobacco into a red Solo nestled in the cupholder of his truck.

He doesn’t need to be working out in the fields, but he does it anyway.

“I like to smell that dirt when you plow it up,” Waller chuckled. “I enjoy cutting that hay and rolling it back.”

He’s wearing a dress shirt and polka-dot suspenders. But for the purposes of farm work, he’s in denim jeans and sneakers.

“It’s in your blood, you can’t get it out.”

But Waller, a third-generation farmer, recognizes the changing agricultural landscape. He watched the 150 acres of land his grandfather first purchased in 1873 grow to around 800. Now he’s back to 150, as plans to lease and develop the remaining acreage into warehouses come to fruition.

Read more:'Check back in three years': Savannah's record growth exerts pressure on rural communities

“The math is not there to hold onto the land today,” said Waller, speaking of skyrocketing property values pushing out smaller-scale farmers like him. “It’s the writing on the wall.”

Waller, however, is business savvy. He said there’s no plans to sell the land outright as he still owns the parcels.

“You don’t sell the goose that lays the golden egg; we leased the goose,” Waller said with a laugh.

Before:Industrial development proposed for Ottawa Farms site

The fight to rezone the land from agricultural to industrial took nearly two years. At the end of that controversial battle in 2021, Waller entered into a contract with the Florida-based McCraney Property Company. Nearly 600 acres of land abutting the green plains of the farm will be razed and turned into warehousing, to the dismay of residents.

“Everybody don’t like change. They want to see a farm,” said Waller, “but they don’t own it … they don’t pay taxes on it.”

Waller stood watch as flocks of black and brown cattle roamed in the tall grass toward the shade of a tree draped in Spanish moss. The rule of thumb is you can’t fall in love with them, he said of the beef cattle.

Once the 10-year warehouse project is complete, the pasture will be gone.

"We saw what was happening"

Waller watched the region transform in the nearly nine decades he’s lived in the city of Bloomingdale. The area once bustled with dairies and vegetable patches. Families owned several acres to farm and raised their own small herd of cattle. In the ‘30s and ‘40s, he said, you either farmed or worked for the railroad.

“We didn’t have trucks coming from Florida bringing in vegetables,” said Waller. “Everything was grown here.”

When Waller took over the farm in his teens after his father’s death, the land had been in his family for at least 70 years. He quit high school and went to work in the shipyard as a machinist, hustling during the day and farming at night.

Even then, farm work was no way to earn money. He found himself in the insulation business. Then, by 23-years-old, he wound up overseeing 700 men at a cement company in North Carolina. Three years later, he returned home.

Waller started running his own insulation business in the early ‘60s while he still worked the farm. But the landscape was shifting.

More:Bloomingdale council: City 'not open for business' for warehouse, apartment development

“We saw what was happening,” he said, “after the I-95 went up.”

Pooler, still one of the fastest growing cities in the region, began to balloon.

Anticipating the risk of Bloomingdale being annexed into its neighboring cities, he, along with four other residents, worked to incorporate the town.

“I took the charter to Atlanta,” Waller said as he recalled his first ever plane trip.

In his office, he pointed to a black and white photo of himself, three other men and then-governor Jimmy Carter smiling with the charter in hand. In 1974, Bloomingdale was incorporated.

Inevitable change

Development continues to explode in the region, transforming the once-sprawling agricultural town. Manufacturing and logistics in the area boomed as the Port of Savannah expanded, growing into one of the busiest ports in the nation.

Today, industrialization is at the heart of residents’ concerns. For Bloomingdale, a city of about 2,600, existence is always in flux. City officials say they’re trying to balance the financial flush warehousing can bring with the quality of life of residents.

Waller knows farming isn’t what’s sustainable here. In 1957 he bought an acre of land for $57, he said. Now that same acre is worth $150,000. The writing is on the wall for all farmers. Even those more inland as growth spills into nearby counties.

Also:Bloomingdale council: City 'not open for business' for warehouse, apartment development

To further supplement his income, Waller opened up the fields to another kind of business – agritourism.

“We were doing this before we realized what it was called,” he said, “We plant about five acres of strawberries every year, three acres of blackberries and five acres of blueberries, all pick-your-own operations.”

The annual strawberry festival is set for this weekend – April 2nd-3rd – and normally attracts up to 10,000 people, said Waller.

Ottawa hosts other attractions as well, such as sunflower picking. For school field trips, he’s installed a giant metal slide, a note he took from the farms up in North Carolina. Nearby is a general store that sells farm-made goods.

A goat that pops its head over a wooden fence is, perhaps, the main attraction. Waller grabs a handful of tobacco and feeds it to him. The goat laps it up, its mouth grinding side to side with sounds of cows mooing in the distance.

“Back then we didn’t have to fence them in,” Waller recalled when his father was alive, “We used to have an open range. Where Home Depot is, we used to run the cows. Where Lowe’s is, we used to run the cows.”

Nancy Guan is the general assignment reporter covering Chatham County municipalities. Reach her at nguan@gannett.com or on Twitter @nancyguann.