Traditional development authorities and the State of Georgia are the most visible in industrial and tourism development in the Greater Savannah region using property tax abatement incentives for encouraging investment in real property development sites.
The Governor of the State of Georgia recently announced the second most significant economic development in the history of Greater Savannah with Hyundai Motors decision to build an EV assembly and battery manufacturing facility in Bryan County with 8,100 employees. The Bryan County Mega Site is located 27 miles west of downtown Savannah just south of I-16 at exit 143.
Governor Brian P. Kemp and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun announced on May 20, 2022 that Hyundai Motor Group will open its first fully dedicated electric vehicle (EV) and battery manufacturing facility at the Bryan County Mega Site. Hyundai Motor Group will invest $5.54 billion in opening its first state-of-the-art U.S. smart factory and delivering an estimated 8,100 new jobs to Georgia’s coastal region. Hyundai suppliers will invest approximately another $1 billion in the project.
The Bryan County Mega Site was purchased by the State of Georgia and the Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Development Authority (JDA) for such an investment less than year before the announcement. In 2015 Volvo was interested in this site but chose Berkeley County near Charleston SC. The only comparable event in Greater Savannah was Grumman Aircraft’s decision in 1967 to build a plant that is now Gulfstream Aerospace with a similar number of employees that Hyundai brings. Most commercial growth in Greater Savannah now occurs in Effingham, Bryan and Liberty counties – especially port-related cargo-transfer mega-warehouses. Hyundai and their suppliers will bring higher skilled positions to an area dominated by lower skilled material handling jobs.
The Georgia Port Authority’s larger Roll-on/Roll-off facility for export of vehicles is located in Brunswick, 90 miles south of the Mega Site and GPA has one with a smaller footprint for vehicle staging in Savannah.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITIES
Joint Development Authority for four counties JDA
Development Authority of Bryan County DABC
Development Authority of Bulloch County DABC
Effingham County Industrial Development Authority ECIDA
Chatham County Economic Development Authority SEDA
Liberty County Development Authority LCDA
World Trade Center Savannah WTC
CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE
Statesboro-Bulloch Chamber of Commerce SBCC
Effingham County Chamber of Commerce SBC
Richmond Hill Bryan County Chamber of Commerce RHBCC
Pooler Chamber of Commerce PCA
Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce SAVC
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATIONS
Savannah Downtown Business Association DBA
Tourism Leadership Council TLC
Greater Savannah 