After more than a decade in the making, plans for a conference center and family entertainment center are beginning to take shape.
Kenneth Howard, in one of his last actions as Hinesville city manager, told Liberty County Chamber of Commerce members and guests at the annual state of the city presentation the city has more than 20 acres it plans to host those venues, and the city is in talks with developers for the site.
“We are working diligently,” he said. “There are a lot of moving parts. We’ve been working on this for 10 years.”
Howard said the effort came out of a discussion about the community doing something for the children and building needed meeting spaces.
“The mayor and the city council accepted a challenge,” he said.
One side of the property, which is between Deal Street and Veterans Parkway, will have an events center. There also is room for hotels and the initial concept calls for a 40,000 square foot civic center.
“We’re not stopping there,” Howard said. “We are recruiting hoteliers and we are looking at venues. We are talking with developers to concurrently build a family site entertainment center on this site.”
Howard alluded that partnerships will be critical in the project, and noted the city’s success in recent alliances with the private sector and other governments. One of the most impactful, he said, has been Oglethorpe Square.
“It set off a trajectory where our growth has been exponential,” he said. “We said this is a gamechanger and it really has been that.”
Building on partnerships
Mayor Karl Riles emphasized the need for partnerships and also remarked on how those have helped the city.
Of 537 cities in the state, Hinesville is the 34th largest, larger in population than Statesboro, Dalton and Lagrange.
“Everybody in this room pulling together in the same direction is what makes our city strong,” Riles said. “Everyone here serves a very vital part in making Hinesville great.”
Fort Stewart remains the city’s largest, and the community’s, largest partner, and city leadership meets once a month with post garrison officials, regardless of any issues that may need to be discussed.
The city’s alliance with Long County on a new well is close to providing the needed water, Howard said. The city got its permit from the state Environmental Protection Division last October and then put the project out to bid.
The well, built just inside the Long County line and not far from Hinesville’s western limits, could start providing water as soon as next week and could provide as much as one million gallons per day.
“Infrastructure is the backbone of Hinesville,” Howard said. If you don’t have your infrastructure in place, then growth will cease. It was imperative we do something and do it quickly.”
Even the green zone well project, as it is known, took three years to accomplish. Long County is in what the EPD calls a green zone, meaning its withdrawals from the upper Floridan aquifer are not restricted. Hinesville, in a yellow zone, faces restrictions on how much water it can pump from the aquifer.
“We had to look outside of Liberty County,” Howard said.
The city, he said, also will be looking for additional water resources in the near future. Hinesville is adding to its wastewater treatment capacity, expanding its water reclamation facility from 2 million gallons per day to 4 million gallons per day, an expansion that comes with a $20 million price tag.“ This is critical,” Howard said. “That will give us enough capacity for another five to 10 years.”
Hinesville’s business footprint continues to grow, and new construction remains steady. The city added 149 new business license recipients in 2025, bringing the number of businesses in the city to over 1,950. Hinesville also issued 188 residential and commercial construction permits in 2025, for a total value of more than $8 million.
“We’re excited about the growth. We are all in this together. As we look at growth, we have to reach partnerships and that is one of the many things I’m proud of,” Howard said.
Finding partners in construction
Another example of the city’s partnerships providing solutions comes through housing efforts — the Azalea Street revitalization is in its final phase, and through its teaming up with a local developer and the state, the downtown terrace project is about to rise from where three dilapidated homes once stood, city leaders pointed out.
Phase 3B of the Azalea Street is seven single-family lots, and two of those lots are under construction and should be finished in January, newly- minted City Manager Ryan Arnold said.
“We were looking for partnerships and reached out to the Housing Authority,” he said. “Those houses are targeted to getting people who are in Housing Authority who wouldn’t qualify for regular loans in a lease to own.”
The city hopes to be finished with the Azalea Street project by the end of 2026. Between Court, Welborn, Ashmore and MLK Jr. Drive, the city is putting in 31 row homes, with the help of the state’s rural workforce housing initiative and local developer Josh Wheeler.
“He had a project in mind,” Arnold said of Wheeler. “He’d like to make this impact on downtown. Is there any way we can partner?”
While the city has maintained a strong relationship with state agencies, and the state had just kicked off the rural workforce housing initiative.
But the first response from the state on working with the city on the project was no.
“It wasn’t big enough,” Arnold said.
The city convinced state Department of Community Affairs representatives to come down, and they walked from city hall to the site. That led to the city getting more than $1 million for site work and infrastructure improvements.
The foundations for the first five units are expected to be laid soon, Arnold added.
“They saw the impact of what it was going to be,” he said. “It already looks really different.”
Road work continues
More than new housing is underway across the city — the roundabout at South Main Street and Ryon Avenue, which is expected to open this month. Next year, the city will take “a bite out of the big apple,” Arnold said, and begin work on the roundabout planned for South Main and Hendry.
South Main is being improved and widened from MacArthur Drive to Veterans Parkway. Drivers on Charles Frasier approaching Veterans will have a dedicated leftturn only lane, a through lane and right-turn only lane. Drivers on South Main Street approaching Veterans also will have a dedicated right-turn only lane, a dedicated left-turn lane and a through lane.
A roundabout at Charles Frasier and Ralph Quarterman Drive is planned, and improvements on Charles Frasier from Veterans Parkway to the Ralph Quarterman roundabout are in the works.
In another partnership result, the city earlier this year unveiled its new fire training academy, built on land provided by the Liberty County Development Authority. Not only can Hinesville Fire Department fire fighters use it for training, so can personnel from other departments.
“It is unique to the area,” Arnold said of the three-story facility, composed of storage containers. “It will improve our department and other departments in the area.”
Mayor: A strong future ahead
Arnold also praised the city staff, for enabling the city to cut its millage rate in eight of the last 11 years. The $32 million general fund budget relies less on homeowners, and the passage of the FLOST, or floating local option sales tax, is expected to generate significant property tax relief.
“It takes the burden off homeowners,” he said.
Riles extoled the city’s youth council, the brainchild of Council member Jason Floyd, and urged other local governments to set aside the resources to foster young leaders.
“You can’t plant oak trees; you have to plant acorns,” he said.
The city has been adding to its calendar of events, with the inaugural day before Thanksgiving Turkey Trot 5K joining such festivities as the award-winning Small World Festival, which “celebrates the multitude of diverse cultures we are blessed to have in the city of Hinesville,” Riles said.
The mayor, who both needled and lauded his longtime friend and the now-retired Howard, believes the city is in good hands with Arnold now at the helm of its day-to-day operations.
“We are very excited about the future of the city of Hinesville and what we can do under this gentleman’s leadership,” he said.