Farmland to Boomtown: Patch of Houston grows more than 700 percent in 20 years
WARNER ROBINS -- Sara Forbes has lived the majority of her 70 years in a white farmhouse southeast of the intersection of Ga. 96 and Lake Joy Road.
But only recently have visitors described the home she shares with her husband, Ed, as across the street from Citizens Bank & Trust and catty-corner to Walgreens drugstore and Mellow Mushroom pizzeria -- commercial development located on land the couple used to own.
“Ten years ago, there wasn’t nothing around here,” Sara Forbes said last week from her living room. “I never thought it would grow up like this.”
Once a 200-acre farm, the couple’s property has shrunk to 50 acres. A garden of cabbages, potatoes and onions has replaced the cows, pigs and crops that once were farmed.
The Forbeses watched from their doorstep as incredible growth popped up around them. From outside their home, they see condos, houses and restaurants, as well as a bank, drugstore and home improvement warehouse.
Even their 9-year-old grandson, Harrison Herbert, who was staying with the Forbeses while out of school on spring break, noted “there was nothing on the corner” when he was born.
In an area less than 10 square miles -- bordered by U.S. 41 to the west, Ga. 96 to the south and South Houston Lake Road to the east -- population has increased 140 percent to 17,841 since 2000. Comparatively, Houston County as a whole has grown by 26 percent to 139,900, according to the 2010 U.S. census.
Go back 10 more years, and the numbers for what is classified as census tract 211.13 are even more staggering. Since 1990, the population in the area has grown by 15,775, an increase of 763.6 percent.
The numbers are driven by convenient highway access, new schools and big-town amenities with a small-town feel, residents and those involved with real estate said last week.
“It just snuck in all of the sudden it feels like,” Sara Forbes said.
‘It’s so much nicer here’
Vivian “Skip” F. Yeisley Jr., 65, and his wife, Theresa, 73, moved from Miami to a house on Air Park Drive two years ago and fell in love with the amenities in the area.
Skip Yeisley, who is retired from the Army and Caterpillar Inc., builds airplanes in the hangar in his backyard and studies airframe and power plant mechanics at nearby Middle Georgia Technical College. Theresa Yeisley, who also is retired from Caterpillar Inc., joined the Warner Robins Senior Activity Center, where she participates in excursions, dances and ceramics classes.
Together, the couple attends meetings of the Experimental Aircraft Association Chapter 38 at the group’s clubhouse, which the Yeisleys can see from their home.
“We went from practically doing nothing in Miami because it was so crowded to doing everything around us,” Skip Yeisley said.
His wife added: “It’s so much nicer here. It’s almost like a big city but with a small town feel.”
That sentiment is what attracts many people to the area, said Realtor Karen Kurzdorfer, broker and owner of RE/MAX Warner Robins. She relocated her office in 2000 to Ga. 96, across the street from Houston County High School, where she often found herself meeting potential homebuyers.
Homebuyers are “looking for a safe environment. They’re looking for low taxes. They’re looking for shopping convenience, and that’s what we have,” Kurzdorfer said. “We have a world here, but yet we still have a small town feel.”
Even some of the area’s newer transplants have noticed the increase in residents.
“Every week, there’s a new house going up or a new family going in,” said Air Force Master Sgt. Lanette Webber, 41, who moved with her now 17- and 19-year-old daughters to a home at the Estates at Lake Joy off Lake Joy Road about two years ago. Before that, Webber lived in military housing near Robins Air Force Base for a year.
“I couldn’t believe we’re in a recession in this area,” Webber said.
After being stationed in Korea, Germany and other places, Webber expects Warner Robins will be the last stop in her travels.
Across the street from Webber, 29-year-old Eric Ross lives in a home with his three elementary-school-aged children and his wife.
The family benefits from their proximity to a movie theater, grocery stores and other shops and restaurants. At the same time, they enjoy peace, quiet and a low crime rate, said Ross, who moved to the area a year-and-a-half ago from the outskirts of Perry.
“You can fall asleep with the door unlocked,” he said.
The Estates at Lake Joy is a growing market with buyers who know what they want, said Victoria Fowler, director of marketing at SF Communities, which developed the neighborhood.
“We get a very educated buyer who knows what they’re looking for,” Fowler said. “They want the school system, they want the convenience to the interstate. The traffic tends to be a little bit better on 96” compared to Watson Boulevard.
In addition, an abundance of available land allows the builder to obtain lots at a lower price, which then can be passed on to the buyer, she said.
Northwest of Lake Joy Road on Crestview Church Road, James Blalock, 78, likes the convenience and quiet of the home he moved to with his wife about four years ago. The couple moved from a mobile home off of Elberta Road near Carl Vinson Parkway at the request of their son.
There’s not as much traffic down his road since Feagin Mill Road was extended to U.S. 41, Blalock said. He said Elberta Road got so busy that he had to pull forward out of his driveway, rather than back out.
Blalock, who worked for the city of Warner Robins for 22 years, said he has watched Warner Robins grow as a whole.
“Everything, in my opinion, has to grow,” he said. “It’d be nice if they had more work for the people who’d like to move in.”
‘Center of growth’
Along the edges of the growing census tract, particularly at the intersections of Lake Joy and Houston Lake roads with Ga. 96, commercial development is booming.
“The demographics are strong around that intersection (at Lake Joy and Ga. 96). There’s subdivision after subdivision,” said Scott Free, associate broker and co-owner of Coldwell Banker Robbins & Free that was involved with the development of Publix and Walgreens there. “Between houses and schools, it’s a good area.”
Publix is a part of the Paradise Shoppes of Warner Robins, which in November 2004 became the first shopping center to open at the intersection. Customers at the time spoke positively about the opening of the shopping center, noting the need in that part of town.
Lowe’s opened across the street in 2006.
Nikki MacMillan opened Bare Bulb Coffee near the Lowe’s shopping center, adjacent to the new Houston Lakes Stadium Cinemas, in October 2010 after studying demographic development and population growth in Houston County.
MacMillan, project director for the coffee shop, which is a nonprofit, said she liked the proximity to schools and commercial development.
“We figured that would be a good place to catch people who were going for other social activities,” MacMillan said.
The development continues down the highway.
East on Ga. 96, where the highway crosses Houston Lake Road, the Shoppes at Houston Lake, anchored by Kroger, opened in 2009. The Chick-fil-A at the intersection opened early last year. Additional development is planned for the shopping center, which is adjacent to the census tract.
A second phase, which includes building an 8,000-square-foot retail building near the Kroger fuel pumps, will start in about two months, said George Eichler with The Ramsbottom Co.
“It’s the highest growing area of Houston County,” he said. “You’ve got a lot of rooftops over there.”
Those rooftops also have a lot of pools, which, in part, prompted the opening of ASP-America’s Swimming Pool Co. in the shopping center in July 2010. There are about 2,500 residential pools within a two-mile radius of the Ga. 96 store, said Tom Swift, ASP owner and operator.
“We had felt the area had been a center of growth,” he said.
Streets, sewers, schools
Houston County has responded to anticipated and actual population growth by spending millions of dollars and most of the decade extending and widening roads, said Houston County Commission Chairman Tommy Stalnaker.
Of $85 million expected from a 2001 special purpose local option sales tax, about $69 million originally was allocated for road projects. From an additional SPLOST in 2006, nearly $101 million of an expected $130 million was set aside for the same purpose, said Stalnaker.
Projects in the area include an extension of Russell Parkway from Houston Lake Road to Interstate 75 that was completed in 2004, and expansions of several parts of Houston Lake Road and Feagin Mill Road, as well as Lake Joy Road.
Ga. 96 is scheduled to be widened between Lake Joy and Moody roads in 2012. Eventually, the road will be widened from Interstate 75 to Ga. 247.
Where there is pavement now, about a decade ago farmland and wooded areas were prominent in the area, Stalnaker said. Because the north end of the county had little undeveloped land, it was natural for new growth to spread to the south and west.
Throughout the decade, new residents also have also been attracted to the school system, job opportunities, low taxes and other quality of life attractions, such as recreational fields and libraries.
“Those things are just like a magnet,” Stalnaker said.
The population growth in Warner Robins, Centerville and Perry, as well as in unincorporated Houston County, would not have been possible during the decade without “cooperation and collaboration” among the four governmental bodies, Stalnaker said.
“For all of us to succeed, we all have to work together,” he said.
For instance, the county sells water services to the city of Warner Robins through the distribution lines it owns in the area. In turn, the city provides water service to its residents, Stalnaker said.
The city of Warner Robins brought sewer out to west Ga. 96 for schools and commercial growth.
“Without the sewer, there wouldn’t be any growth out there,” said Montie Walters, Warner Robins utilities director.
Sewer capacity is planned years in advance to account for growth, he said.
“We try to extend our sewer as developments come about that need sewer,” Walters said. “It’s an ongoing process. We’re extending it all the time.”
The growth in the area has also driven the construction of some of Houston County’s newest public schools.
In fall 2007, the district opened Mossy Creek Middle School and a new building for Lake Joy Elementary School to serve students in the area.
At the same time, Houston County enrolled about 900 more students than neighboring Bibb County’s 25,030 students, becoming the largest school district in Middle Georgia. As of October 2010, the Houston County school system had about 27,000 students, about 3,000 more than Bibb County’s.
By building the roads and other facilities driven by population growth all over the county, including a new courthouse and jail, government officials are “stay(ing) ahead of the growth,” Stalnaker said.
Occasionally, older residents express concern that Houston County is losing its bucolic character with the rapid development, he said.
However, those residents who helped build up Warner Robins and the area in decades past would have had a different way of looking at things, he said.
“If they had not wanted to change, it wouldn’t have,” said Stalnaker, whose family has lived in the area since the late 1800s. “They had a vision for growth, improvement and better opportunity.”
‘They call it progress’
The Forbeses first sold off part of their farm in 2001. Farmers in the area started selling land as business struggled and agricultural taxes increased, said Ed Forbes, 70.
“We tried to get ahead,” he said.
He reckons they will eventually sell off the rest of the farm, though “the economy’s gotta get a lot better.”
Sara Forbes said she doesn’t know how she will feel when she has to leave.
“I guess it was bound to come,” said Ed Forbes, who sees the good and bad of the development. “They call it progress.”
Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report.
This story was originally published April 3, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Farmland to Boomtown: Patch of Houston grows more than 700 percent in 20 years."
