SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) — Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said Friday that a planned mega-site in Bryan County is a tremendous opportunity for the area and state in terms of new growth and potentially thousands of new jobs.

“No one has going for them than (we do) with this site right here,” said the governor.

The massive site is nearly 2,300 acres and located just off Highway 280 near Ellebelle.

“From a location standpoint you can’t get any better than where we are right now,” said Anna Chafin from Development Authority of Bryan County. “We’re adjacent to Interstate 16, less than 15 miles from Interstate 95 and less than 30 miles from the Port of savannah and the Savannah Hilton Head International Airport.”

Chafin also made it clear the mega-site (the area must be more than 1,000 acres) project has been formulated to attract a major manufacturing facility. She says the plan is not to divide the site into smaller tracts for a number of different companies.

While this is a state and local partnership, much of the credit for the project coming together was given to the Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Development Authority (JDA). That group is made up of leaders from Bryan County, Bulloch County, Chatham County, and Effingham Counties.

Governor Kemp told the crowd that had gathered to celebrate the achievement that the is ‘speed to market’ ready.

“That deals with how quickly this site can be set up, how quickly we can get utilities here, how quickly we could have a company operating,” said Kemp. “A lot of the deals we’re doing now – these companies say they need to be operational first quarter of 2023 or 2nd quarter of 2023. We can do that with this site.”

The sale of the land is expected to go through by the end of July and would be the largest such sale in state history.The state is kicking in millions and so are counties.

“So the amount of money to get this site ready, while it’s a lot, pales in comparison to the big picture of the economic impact it will have on this area, literally for generations,” said the governor.

Kemp said this is ultimately about keeping the state ahead of the game and ahead of competition from other states.