After years of rumors and false starts, multiple groundbreakings and lots of infrastructure and road construction, dirt is finally moving at the Publix construction site.
Justin Williams, Senior Planner with the City of Statesboro's Planning and Development department has confirmed that Watkins Real Estate was issued construction permits on Thursday, December 16, 2021.
Watkins purchased the 12.667 acres of land at the corner of Veterans Memorial Parkway and Old Register road in May of this year, 2021.
Watkins Real Estate is developing the 66,000 square feet Eagles Corner Shopping Center.
Publix Super Market confirmed earlier this year that they will be the anchor tenant for the strip center leasing 48,387 square feet.
We reached out to Bob Peck, Director of Development for Watkins Real Estate for an update on other tenants who may have signed leases for the site. Mr. Peck is unavailable till next week. We will follow up with more updates on the project then.
Anticipation and Frustration
In what has been one of the longest and most anticipated construction projects maybe in the history of construction for the City of Statesboro, Publix is finally re-entering the Statesboro Market.
Publix's plans always have been to open the store in late 2022. Grice Connect confirmed this in story in 2019.
Even with this announcement, there seemed to continue to be confusion in the local market about when or even if they were coming back.
With so many false starts and seemingly unending promises that Publix was coming back over the past decade, there has been lots of speculation on whether they would actually come.
Kody Jordan, a Georgia Southern Student, even produced a comical video on the great Publix Myth. In the video he interviewed a Georgia Southern student who came to GS with the promise of a Publix. She is now graduating without the promised grocery store.
It appears Kody that Pub Subs are on the way, finally to Statesboro.
They are anticipating a late 2022 opening for Publix and the shopping center.
