Pooler Parkway: Speculation and development abounds! (Atlanta, Savannah: 2014, houses, bankrupt)

[Newsboy]

GREAT story in today's SMN that confirms all that we've been hearing and observing about recent Pooler Parkway development, as well as the fact that something BIG is about to happen at the I-16 intersection (which has sat dormant since the original developer went bankrupt).

A prime strip: Along Pooler Parkway, speculation and development abounds | Savannahnow.com Mobile

What I'm still wanting to hear is whether development will soon be jump-started in the New Hampstead area further up I-16 at Bloomingdale Road. This is another PUD project like Godley Station that will eventually reach all the way back down to 204 near I-95. Right now, the only thing out there is a high school but it could eventually have 20,000 houses.

Big changes, big future still to come in West Chatham. We ain't seen nothing yet!

[gentlearts]

I'm scared. I am happy about the development, but I hope we don't wind up with a bunch of half empty strip malls. There are already a lot of empty storefronts on Hwy 80, "Historic Pooler", and probably more of them will jump up to Pooler Parkway, and leave 80 to further crumble into dumpiness.

[ellie]

Ghost of Abercorn Past. Y'all enjoy. I'm having none of it.

[Newsboy]

For all the angst about Pooler Parkway turning into another Abercorn, I think people overlook the fact that it's being developed using access roads and arterials. It's not a miles-long strip of commercial developments each with their own curb cuts. That makes a huge difference. Also, Pooler Parkway is unlikely to ever see the endless car dealerships that add a lot to Abercorn's blight.

Abercorn, love it or hate it, is Savannah's main street. And the problem with it has always been not so much the fact that it's got so much stuff on it, but the fact that it's near impossible to get anywhere in town and avoid it. There's no connections from it to the westside, and the east-side arterials all pretty much dead-end at Truman Parkway (or the water). It begins as a two-lane street at the river, expands through a residential area, goes for miles and miles as the Southside's commercial center and finally ... FINALLY! ... 13 miles later, becomes a "sorta" expressway as it nears I-95.

Pooler Parkway, on the other hand, has three key "limited access" (freeway interchange) points, at I-16, I-95 and US 80. IMO, this insures that it will never, ever be another Abercorn. The differences are huge.

Think about the disaster that is US 278 through Bluffton. Why? Because it's one way in, one way out. Pooler Parkway is not that. As the lead to the story in today's paper alludes, a fly over of the Pooler area would make any developer drool ... and anybody with any common sense knowledge about how areas develop to go, "OK. This makes sense." it's a perfect place for Chatham County's second big retail corridor.

[CoastalGAGuy]

I go entire weeks without doing so much as crossing Abercorn. But then, I've built my life around the islands and downtown, so I'm an east/west traveler, and not a north/south one.

The real reason that Abercorn is such a mess (and for that matter, White Bluff Road), is because of Hunter Army Airfield. If traffic north of DeRenne and west of Bull Street was not pinched to everything east of HAAF as it headed south, traffic between DeRenne and Montgomery Cross Road wouldn't be the nightmare that it is.

[ellie]

It's still going to be another worthless mess of generic urban sprawl. It's the Atlanta cancer. It's what makes one city blur into the next with a tiresome repetition of chains and franchises. You won't be able to walk down it or ride your bike without hazard. You're going to get another endless patchwork of parking lots and intersections. It's just another no place. Welcome to Pooler, USA. Another American blah.

[Newsboy]

Originally Posted by CoastalGAGuy

I go entire weeks without doing so much as crossing Abercorn. But then, I've built my life around the islands and downtown, so I'm an east/west traveler, and not a north/south one.

The real reason that Abercorn is such a mess (and for that matter, White Bluff Road), is because of Hunter Army Airfield. If traffic north of DeRenne and west of Bull Street was not pinched to everything east of HAAF as it headed south, traffic between DeRenne and Montgomery Cross Road wouldn't be the nightmare that it is.

Hunter is what I meant by Abercorn not having any connections to the westside. HAAF literally cuts the city in half, and as much as it contributes to our economy, suffice it to say that Savannah would be a MUCH different city development-wise without the handicap.

It's too late now probably, but the solution years ago should have been to construct a connector freeway either through or around the south end of Hunter, like 516, that would have directly connected the Montgomery Crossroad to the westside. The Southwest Bypass tried to do that, but it's really too far off the Abercorn strip to be effective.

Wonder if Truman Parkway could ever be extended?

[Newsboy]

Originally Posted by ellie

It's still going to be another worthless mess of generic urban sprawl. It's the Atlanta cancer. It's what makes one city blur into the next with a tiresome repetition of chains and franchises. You won't be able to walk down it or ride your bike without hazard. You're going to get another endless patchwork of parking lots and intersections. It's just another no place. Welcome to Pooler, USA. Another American blah.

Ellie, tell us how you really feel.

[ellie]

Originally Posted by Newsboy

Ellie, tell us how you really feel.

Don't be so sarcastic, you know what I'm saying is true. There's not one thing in those proposals that makes the development in Pooler unique or otherwise desirable. Sure, people in Pooler are starving to death because they don't have enough fast food options but other than just creating another under-designed hub of congestion for the western end of the county, I don't know why anybody would care.

[counterclockwise]

Pooler Pkw is already congested from US 80 to I-95. Parts of Pooler Pkw edge are lined with construction barricades. Three intersections are under the process of upgrading turning lanes which will create more bottlenecks and more complex signaled intersections. Pooler "Gumbo" has to be removed and replaced with suitable base before paving. Traffic congestion along this area is getting more dangerous for this Effingham resident to go out to dinner or shopping at Home Depot and Wal-Mart. I care.