What has to happen before anyone pours new pavement at Frederica Road and Sea Island Road? The engineering is mostly done. Glynn County's project page for the roundabout describes a design in its final phase, with two steps left: utility coordination and property acquisition. The part that remains unsettled sits on the east side of the intersection, under a stand of live oaks that Sea Island Road splits in two.
That grove is Twitty Park. The roundabout's timeline now runs through it, and through a deed written in 1924.
The intersection the county has been studying since 2008
The current setup is a four-way signal with turning lanes, as The Brunswick News describes it. The county first named the need for a roundabout in 2008. It approved the project in FY2023, in June 2022, with a $6 million budget. Southeastern Engineering is the designer. It also designed the Kings Way and Frederica Road roundabout a short drive south. The traffic counts behind the plan were taken over July 4th weekend in 2021 to capture peak demand, and the analysis projects benefits through a design year of 2041.
Two design details matter most for anyone who drives through here every day:
- Offset center. The circle's center is shifted so new pavement can go in while traffic keeps using the existing lanes.
- Tree count on Old Stables. The current design removes 12 trees on the separate Old Stables property, two of them specimen live oaks. The county commits to planting two replacements for each one.
Part of the traffic circle is designed to sit on Twitty Park, on the east side of the intersection. That overlap is why the schedule now depends on the park.
Power lines move before the pavement
Georgia Power's distribution lines run through the project area, and they have to be relocated before the roundabout can be built. At its June 4, 2026 meeting, the Board of Commissioners approved a utility relocation agreement with Georgia Power worth $1,287,738. According to The Brunswick News coverage of that vote, the negotiations were time-consuming, and the agreement requires work to begin within six months. Six months from June 4 is early December 2026.
Commission Chairman Wayne Neal said some preparation can happen before the lines move. He also gave the paper a target date:
"I do believe we will start work on that roundabout by the end of the year. This is a major appointment. Hopefully, all the obstacles are out of the way."
So the county is working against two dates a few weeks apart: the utility agreement's early-December deadline for work to begin and the chairman's year-end start. Both fall inside the same oak grove the lawsuit is about.
What the 1924 deed says
According to the complaint, businessman T.L. Cain deeded Twitty Park to Glynn County on or about January 16, 1924, on the condition that it stay a public park. If it stops being one, title reverts to Cain's successors. Sea Island Road later cut through the park. The Brunswick News reports that the deed's restrictions cover use as a park and as access to Sea Island.
The deed has been in court before. Here is the sequence:
- 1924. T.L. Cain gives the land to Glynn County as a park.
- 1982. The county transfers the property to Sea Island.
- 2016. The Glynn Environmental Coalition and a co-plaintiff sue over that transfer. Brunswick Judicial Circuit Judge Stephen Kelley later rules the swap void and orders that the county keep ownership of Twitty Park.
- 2019. The coalition asks the court to hold the county in contempt of that order over the roundabout proposal.
- May 21, 2026. In a contempt proceeding, The Islander reports, Judge Kelley found the county was not in contempt and denied the contempt motion. The Brunswick News reported that the court held the public-use questions had not been properly raised in a contempt hearing.
- August 3, 2026. A new suit, case CE26-00933, is filed in Glynn County Superior Court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief.
The contempt ruling left the public-use question open, and the August filing raises it directly.
The question in the new case
According to The Islander, the new filing asks the court to bar the county from encroaching on, developing, or altering Twitty Park. That includes building the roundabout and relocating utilities under the Georgia Power agreement. As an alternative, it asks the court to declare that the park has reverted to the holders of the reverter interest. These are requests, not rulings.
The two sides describe the same ground very differently. The coalition says utility relocation would affect about 40% of the park and many mature oaks. The county's 12-tree figure covers the Old Stables property, a different parcel, so the two numbers can't be compared directly.
Each side's own words, as reported by The Brunswick News:
- Glynn Environmental Coalition. Executive Director Rachael Thompson said the case is "about protecting assets for future generations and honoring both the letter and spirit of commitments made over a century ago." The coalition says it is not opposing transportation improvements in general.
- Glynn County. In a November 2025 statement, the county said it believes the traffic improvements are being planned "within the scope of the property's authorized public purposes." It added that its planning takes into account "both the history of the property and the need to provide safe, functional infrastructure for the community consistent with the intent of the original deed."
The county's statement and the deed's mention of "access to Sea Island" both come back to the same question: whether a road project can count as a park purpose. The answer will decide whether the Georgia Power crews begin on the county's schedule.
The park itself
The 1924 gift is easy to overlook from a car at a red light. In the coalition's description, Twitty Park is a live-oak grove with a canopy of Spanish moss at the corner of Frederica Road and Sea Island Road, and residents use it for picnics, biking, running, walking and enjoying the scenery. The coalition scheduled its "Under the Oaks" fall picnic there for Sunday, November 8, from 1 to 2:30 p.m., with lunch catered by Southern Soul Barbeque. It promoted the afternoon as a chance to share information about an upcoming court hearing. The listed address for parking is 501 Sea Island Road.
How Kings Way was built
When this project does begin, the closest local comparison is the Kings Way and Frederica Road roundabout, which has the same designer. Before that build, The Brunswick News reported that a three-week shutdown of the intersection was one option on the table. It also warned that the first-quarter 2021 work would frustrate island residents and visitors. A construction notice from April 2021 said initial paving would start at night on Monday, April 19. Drivers could expect intermittent one-lane traffic, flaggers, police assistance and delays.
The Sea Island Road design aims to avoid a full shutdown by keeping traffic on the existing lanes while new pavement goes in beside them. Even so, the first construction at this intersection won't be paving. It will be Georgia Power moving lines through and around Twitty Park, which is the same ground the court case covers. As of this week, the county's project page still lists utility coordination and property acquisition as the remaining steps. That leaves the early-December deadline for utility work to begin and Chairman Neal's year-end target on the calendar.
If you live near Frederica Road or Sea Island Road and are weighing how the roundabout might affect access, traffic or the setting around your property, Ganten Kirby can walk you through what the county has published and what it could mean for your home's value. Start with a complimentary home valuation.
