Georgia taxpayers have poured $75 million into updating Jekyll Island's aging amenities in hopes that a tourism turnaround will reverse years of declining tourism. Now the state park's administrators hope that an uptick in visitors and a flashy new convention center and retail district can justify the expense.
Gov. Nathan Deal will visit the beachside park on Monday for what he bills as a "rededication" ceremony to celebrate the sprawling new convention center, cluster of retails shops and restaurants and 200-room hotel. In all, the makeover cost nearly $200 million, with most of the money coming from private partners.
It's a decade-long gamble for Georgia officials, who began to consider an overhaul of the island's dilapidated hotels and crusty convention center in the early 2000s. But a controversial proposal for a luxury development by the owners of the Reynolds Plantation tanked with the economy, and other plans stalled as well.
The Jekyll Island Authority, with about $75 million in state-backed financing, picked up where they left off. The authority redid the island entryway, remade the public beach and underwrote the $36 million convention center, which overlooks the beach.
The Westin secured financing for a new hotel, and Holiday Inn remodeled an aging hotel into a new oceanfront resort. A new Jekyll Island Youth and Learning Center to replace a faded 4-H Center is in the works with the help of $16 million in tax dollars.
Jones Hooks, the authority's executive director, said the redevelopment means that "Jekyll Island is once again a very bright spot on Georgia's coast." Russ Bynum of The Associated Press offers some context on why Hooks is so optimistic.
Jekyll Island no longer tracks tourism by estimating its total number of annual visitors, Hooks said.
Meanwhile, convention and meeting bookings have risen sharply — from 131 to 216 — between 2012, when the convention center opened mid-year, and 2015. The extra business helped the Jekyll Island Authority put its business in the black this year for the first time in years. The authority reported a $1.6 million surplus in the 2015 fiscal year ending June 30. Last year the state park saw a net loss of $3.6 million.
Much is riding on the island's revival. For Deal, who signed legislation that rewrote Jekyll's development guidelines, Jekyll's turnaround is as much a legacy project as his criminal justice overhaul or his bid to expand the judiciary.
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