"It used to be barren and desolate, now things are looking better, like the new car wash," said Tony Arensdorf, who co-owns Tony's Storage Buildings, just off the highway, next to the new business.
Many locals hope the $450 million port project would bring prosperity to the rural, impoverished county.
"We'd love to see it," said Rita Thomas, owner of the Pink Pig Restaurant, the local barbecue joint. "It would bring a lot of jobs, increase property values, increase local industry."
About 29 percent of Jasper County residents live at or below the poverty line, compared with 11.3 percent in Beaufort, and 14 percent statewide, according to 2002 Lowcountry Council of Governments data.
Jasper officials hope the port project would change those numbers.
"This port is mainly about jobs and to serve as a catalyst for future growth," Andrew Fulghum, Jasper County administrator, said Wednesday.
Officials at the Georgia and South Carolina ports authorities estimate that there would be 10 spin-off jobs for every dock job created, said Henry Moss, former Jasper County administrator and present consultant for SSA Marine, the port developer looking to build in Jasper.
A 2001 study by Bruce A. Seaman, a Georgia State University economics professor, concluded that 1,800 to 2,000 jobs would enter the region after the first phase of construction, Moss said.
"By the time phase three is completed, there would be 900 to 1,200 dock jobs (in Jasper County) and 5,000 to 6,000 local regional jobs. But we were conservative in our initial estimates," he said.
At the time of the study, the projected first year of operation was 2006, after three years of development.
"Now the earliest completion date is probably 2008," Moss said.
The first phase of the project would include 250 to 400 developed acres, 48,000 feet of berth and nine container cargo cranes.
"That will take three to four years to get going," Jake Coakley, vice president for SSA Marine, said Wednesday.
The third phase or total development could be completed five to six years after the ground breaking, he estimated.
The Georgia State University study estimated that 8,125 port related jobs would be generated in the local region when the project is finished with that number, and would explode to 97,566 jobs by 2015.
This does not take into consideration construction jobs, which could easily employee 1,000 people, Moss said.
Upriver, the Georgia Ports Authority accounts for 275,968 jobs statewide or 7 percent of the state's total employment. The S.C. State Ports Authority is responsible for 281,660 jobs.