Effingham officials signed OpenAI's tax break under a nondisclosure agreement five months before telling the public, and the company can buy the land back for $10 after 15 years.
International Paper listed 735 riverfront acres, including its shuttered 90-year-old mill, for sale with offers due this fall.
The mass-timber apartment building at 111 Ann St. is filing to become a hotel, the second building in that complex to convert in two years.
The Port of Savannah opened its $126 million Brampton Road Connector and closed the fiscal year just short of 5.7 million containers.
West Savannah residents say a stalled apartment redevelopment has sat vacant and overgrown for five years with no fix in sight.
The Read
Land is changing hands and changing use around Savannah faster than the public can track it. Effingham's commissioners locked in OpenAI's tax terms under a signed non-disclosure agreement months before residents heard the word "data center," and the paper trail only surfaced because a reporter went looking for it. Ninety miles of that same pattern shows up smaller: a downtown apartment building built for SCAD students two years ago is already filing to become a hotel, the second building in its complex to make that switch since last year.
Not everything moves at that pace. The port keeps adding capacity on schedule, a new freight road, a fiscal year just shy of last year's record, a $5 billion plan advancing berth by berth. But in West Savannah, an apartment redevelopment that displaced income-based housing five years ago is still an overgrown lot with foxes in it, and nobody in city government has told the neighborhood what happens next. Speed, it turns out, depends entirely on who is asking.
The Brampton Road Connector opened July 15: a $126 million, four-lane limited-access highway built by Georgia DOT that links Garden City Terminal's Gate 3 directly to the interstate system and removes truck traffic and at-grade rail crossings from surrounding neighborhood streets. GPA CEO Griff Lynch said it will mean faster truck turn times and safer routing inland. It's the last piece of a corridor GDOT has been assembling for 12 years and nearly $600 million, alongside the I-16/I-95 interchange, the Jimmy Deloach Parkway and the Highway 307 overpass.
Scale$126M connector; $5B ten-year capital plan; 5.67M TEUs FY2026TimelineConnector opened July 15, 2026; capital plan runs through 2035WhoGeorgia Ports Authority (Griff Lynch); Georgia DOT (Russell R. McMurry)
Why it mattersThis is the road GDOT has been building toward for over a decade specifically so port truck traffic stops running through neighborhood streets, opening in the same month the port posted its second-best year ever.
Ann Street Lofts opened in 2023 as the first mass-timber residential project in the Southeast, a 389-unit, two-building complex at 110 and 111 Ann St. designed by LS3P and built with cross-laminated timber panels shipped from Austria, aimed at SCAD students and young professionals. Two years later, both buildings are leaving residential use. The 110 Ann St. building already converted and reopened in February 2025 as Ann Savannah by Marriott Bonvoy. Savannah Agenda reports building permit applications now filed by developer Tidal Real Estate Partners would convert the remaining building at 111 Ann St., 232 units, into a hotel with a restaurant, cafe and bars. Construction fencing already surrounds the site.
The unit count hasn't been announced for the hotel version. The building was refinanced with a $78.6 million bridge loan through Walker & Dunlop in 2024, arranged to pay off construction debt, before the conversion was announced.
Scale232 apartments converting; sister building already 389 units totalTimelineBuilt 2023; 110 Ann converted Feb. 2025; 111 Ann permits filed Aug. 2026WhoTidal Real Estate Partners (developer); LS3P (architect)
Why it mattersBoth buildings in Savannah's showcase mass-timber apartment project have now left the residential market for hotel rooms within three years of opening, in a downtown where short-term lodging demand is outbidding long-term housing.
Effingham County's industrial development authority signed a mutual non-disclosure agreement with OpenAI on February 2, then spent five months negotiating in private before the county signed a memorandum of understanding with Octans GA LLC, an OpenAI affiliate, on July 21. The public announcement came the next day. Records obtained by WTOC show the deal was worked out by IDA CEO Brandt Herndon, Vice President Jessica Hood, County Manager Tim Callanan and School Superintendent Yancy Ford.
The tax terms are unusual even by data-center standards. Georgia normally assesses property at 40% of fair market value; this deal locks OpenAI's assessment at 25% for 15 years per project phase, a 37.5% annual cut, with the tax rate frozen at 2026's millage. After 15 years, OpenAI can buy the property back from the county for $10. The project itself, five phases on 1,400 acres at the Savannah Gateway Industrial Hub outside Rincon, is unchanged from what cleared last week: four buildings, 3.2 gigawatts of Georgia Power capacity delivered 2028 to 2032, construction starting late 2028 and running through 2034.
Residents who found out after the fact are the story now. "If it's such a great thing for this area, why isn't it being done out in the open?" resident Wade Britt told WTOC. County Manager Callanan defended the secrecy as standard for a deal of this size, pointing to the jobs and to a promised cut in homestead property taxes of up to 40%.
Scale$20B investment, 1,400 acres, four buildings, 3.2 GWTimelineNDA signed Feb. 2; MOU signed July 21; construction 2028–2034WhoEffingham County Industrial Development Authority / OpenAI
Why it mattersThe tax mechanics mean OpenAI pays 37.5% less than a normal Effingham property owner for 15 years, then can buy the land back for the price of a cup of coffee, and county officials agreed to all of it before residents were allowed to know it was happening.
What to watchThe building moratorium clock keeps running toward 2028 groundbreaking; whether Effingham publishes future incentive deals before signing, not after, is the open question this story leaves behind.
Last week's issue covered the project clearing its first hurdle; these records show the terms were actually locked in five months earlier than that announcement suggested.
The Georgia Department of Transportation opened public comment on July 6 for a proposed Atlanta-to-Savannah intercity passenger rail corridor, with the online survey open through August 6. Five candidate routes are on the table, some through Macon, others past Athens or Augusta, alongside smaller cities including Statesboro and Milledgeville. GDOT says the goal is to establish reliable passenger service connecting the two metro areas, but the project remains in the planning stage, with technical, ridership and financial studies ongoing and no construction timeline set.
