The collection of quaint shopping kiosks at the corner of Mallery Street and Beachview Drive in the Pier Village shopping district on St. Simons Island could come tumbling down to give way for a massive art complex.
It’s the plan outlined in an application filed last week with the Glynn County Community Development Department.
Pier Village Market is a collection of colorful, wood-framed shops set atop a series of staircases that sell everything from hot dogs to art to jewelry and skin care products.
The property owners plan to demolish the existing buildings and construct one 20,000-square-foot building as a public art collection museum. It will include a lecture hall and meeting spaces.
The plan is to consolidate three parcels, which would also include the large building housing Dutchman’s Casual Living Store at 513 Beachview Drive, according to the application filed Feb. 24.
Shopkeepers in the Pier Village Market were informed via email late last week that they would have to be out by May 31. Employees at Dutchman’s confirmed the long-time eclectic furniture and furnishings store also received marching orders to be out by May.
Allison Stannard’s ALo Naturals skin care kiosk has thrived at the location three years. She just shrugged Tuesday when asked about the news.
“Change happens, things happen,” she said, standing outside her shop. “It’s life. Of course, none of us wants to leave. Everyone here is like a family.”
Stannard, however, is confident her shop will find another location on the island.
An employee at Dutchman’s declined to go on the record but said the store also plans to find another site on the island.
Sandy Vacation LLC owns virtually the entire block, which is bounded by Mallery Street, Beachview Drive, 15th Street and Oglethorpe Avenue. The only parcel in the block the company does not own is the building at Mallery Street and Oglethorpe Avenue, where Simons Gallery, Gifts and Antiques operates.
Because the property is in the Village Preservation District, it will have to be presented to the Islands Planning Commission for approval. It will require the consent of the Glynn County Commission to change the zoning from village mixed use to planned development, according to the application.
The Georgia Corporations Division lists Sandy Vacation as having an office at 251 Dune Ave. on Sea Island and a physical address in Lawrenceville. Sandy Vacation LLC bought the half-acre of property, which was embroiled in a legal dispute that reached the Georgia Supreme Court, last April.
Pier Village Market property manager Betty Ellis told The News in September that Sandy Vacation is owned by Philip Anschutz, the billionaire business tycoon who also owns the Sea Island Co.
Wiregrass Studio Architects at 1208 Newcastle St. is listed as the project’s developer/architect.
Sandy Vacations informed shopkeepers as far back as October that they would probably have to move in May. Last week, the property owners confirmed it, Stannard said.
The Pier Village Market shopkeepers are not the only ones who will miss the place when it’s gone, Stannard said.
“Every single day I hear from people who say how much they love this place,” she said. “They say how much they love going through the shops every time they come down. It’s kind of a St. Simons icon.”
