St. Marys’ old Gilman Paper Mill site was supposed to be sold on the courthouse stairs Tuesday for its developer’s unpaid debts to a Camden County public agency. But the company’s bankruptcy filing hours prior has delayed efforts to recoup public costs in the stalled deal.
County taxpayers must now wait on a bankruptcy proceeding which will referee ownership of the site and settle the status of about $9.2 million owed by the company to the Camden County Joint Development Authority.
Under the corporate bankruptcy process, the roughly 719 acres of land between downtown St. Marys and the St. Marys River remain in the hands of JDI Cumberland Inlet, LLC, an Atlanta-based firm controlled by Jim Jacoby. The company claimed between $10 million and $50 million in liabilities, according to the May 5 bankruptcy filing. Yet the company also claimed assets valued at more than $100 million and estimated that funds. In the bankruptcy process, those assets will be available to secured and unsecured creditors.
Jacoby, who’s managed the project through his company Jacoby Development, declined comment when reached by phone Wednesday. He said a written statement about the status of the project and potential investors would be published in the coming days.
Among those first in line to recoup funds should be the Camden County Joint Development Authority, which lent Cumberland Inlet approximately $11 million in 2021 to acquire the polluted land and jumpstart development.
Georgia counties typically have one or more such agencies tasked with attracting development, and loans can be part of the enticement.
The company owes the JDA $9.2 million, according to James Coughlin, executive director of the agency.
“The good news is we are a secured creditor,” Couglin said. “We’re secured by the land which has a greater value, according to all appraisals, than what we are owed.”
Trouble with the developer has been brewing for months. The JDA published notice of a courthouse steps foreclosure sale in April after Cumberland Inlet was late on a 2024 loan repayment and missed paying about $182,000 due in February.
The JDA board said in a statement Thursday that the agency would be persistent in pursuing its rights and protecting taxpayer assets, even including litigation if need be. “We will take whatever steps are necessary but prudent to return this valuable property to an economic development opportunity” it said..
Cumberland Inlet’s bankruptcy filing shows it also owes $4.5 million to a Delaware corporation that had formed part of the LLC itself, approximately $30,000 to the law firm of former state Sen. Bill Ligon, and a St. Marys surveyor who is owed $1,080.
About $123,000 in property taxes are past due to the county and the city.
Typically, a business bankruptcy results in one of two things: either a shutdown or some kind of reorganization that keeps it going more or less to the satisfaction of its creditors.
By May 19, the company is supposed to file a statement of financial affairs and other documents to a federal bankruptcy court in Atlanta. On June 9, the company and its creditors are scheduled for a public court conference by phone.
Five years ago, the company promised homes, rentals, a hotel, shops, an upscale RV park and more tourist draws around a marina, to replace the still-polluted former industrial site. Brownfields are already part of Jacoby’s resume: his companies redeveloped an old steel mill site into the Atlantic Station node of stores and highrises in Atlanta; and turned an old Ford factory site into the Porsche Cars North American Headquarters near Atlanta. Cumberland Inlet was a big enough deal that Gov. Brian Kemp came for a 2022 ceremonial groundbreaking.
In November last year, though the company had been late on a payment to the development authority, Jacoby said at the time that there’s a lot of interest in the site and the project is moving forward.
Nobody disputes that it’s a nice location. The question is when something might finally replace the paper mill.