What has changed in the schedule for the Islands Expressway bridge?
If you commute between Savannah and Wilmington Island, Whitemarsh Island, or Talahi on a regular basis, you've probably lost count. The state has now told the public six different times over the last five years exactly when the second span over the Wilmington River would finally open to traffic. Five of those dates have already come and gone. The sixth, August 30, 2026, is now in the past as of this writing, and there's no confirmed public record yet showing whether it actually held. The project's changing schedule is the focus here.
Why the Old Bridge Had to Go
Before any of this construction started, Islands Expressway crossed the Wilmington River on a pair of mechanical bascule drawbridges, one built in 1963 and reused in part for a second span in 1989. Locally, the older span carried the name Sam Varnedoe Bridge, and as of 2018 it was described by Chatham County's Director of Public Works, Robert Drewry, as the last mechanical drawbridge left in the state. That drawbridge opened for boat traffic more than 3,800 times in a single reported year, and every one of those openings stopped car traffic cold in both directions.
The replacement project, awarded to Prince Contracting, LLC after the state issued its notice to proceed on February 2, 2018, was designed to end that. According to the contractor's own project page, the plan called for two new bridges nearly 1,900 feet long, rising about 90 feet above the Wilmington River, high enough that maritime traffic would never again force a car to stop and wait. The first of the two new spans opened to traffic in July 2022, right on an earlier version of schedule. The second span has had several revised completion targets.
Six Target Dates in Four Years
Here's what the public record actually shows, pulled from state and local reporting as each new date was announced.
| When it was reported | New target for the second span |
|---|---|
| 2021 project update | 2024 |
| Original contract deadline | March 31, 2024 |
| September 2024, after the deadline was missed | Summer 2025 |
| December 2024 | First quarter of 2026 |
| April 2025, contractor's revised schedule | Second quarter of 2026 |
| April 2025, final contract amendment | August 30, 2026 |
Six different windows, each replacing the one before it, stretched across four years of public statements. The Chatham County engineering department's project page lists the second bridge as "underway." It does not give a more specific completion date.
How the Liquidated Damages Changed
The liquidated damages are one part of the project's schedule history.
Once the original March 31, 2024 deadline passed, GDOT began assessing liquidated damages against Prince Contracting at a rate of $5,089 per calendar day. By April 24, 2025, 388 days had accrued at that rate, adding up to roughly $1.94 million in fines on the books.
Then GDOT and Prince Contracting reached an agreement: the state added time to the contract, and in exchange, the entire $1.94 million in accumulated penalties was wiped away. The fine didn't get collected. It got traded for a new deadline, the one that landed on August 30, 2026.
The agreement’s terms are documented, while whether the latest target held remains unconfirmed.
What This Has Actually Looked Like on the Ground
None of this has been abstract for the people who live along the corridor.
Wilmington Island resident Robert Callaway, who commutes the Expressway daily for his job, has described scraping the undercarriage liner off his own car on the road's bumps and construction transitions, on top of years of frustration watching the project slip. Ryon Thompson has also described concerns about merging onto the Expressway.
Safety has been a recurring concern beyond individual frustration. In the year following the first new span's opening in July 2022, Chatham County police recorded 36 accidents in the immediate area and issued 109 tickets, according to reporting at the time. Susan Brinkley, representing the Causton Bluff homeowners association, publicly asked GDOT for additional safety measures near the merge points as those accident numbers piled up. Whether that specific stretch has improved since is something only current traffic data would confirm, but it's the kind of detail that shows this project has never just been a line item on a state budget. It has affected people who use the corridor every day.
Project Milestones to Follow
Three project milestones can help track progress on the second span and the remaining work.
- Whether GDOT assesses any new liquidated damages against Prince Contracting after August 30, 2026
- Whether Prince Contracting crews are still visibly active on the second span or have demobilized from the site
- Whether the old drawbridge structure has actually been removed, since a fully finished project requires demolition of the original spans, not just a shift in which lane you drive
The public record documents changing target dates and the April 2025 agreement on liquidated damages. Further updates to the completion schedule and any new assessments will show how the project progresses.
If you've been commuting this corridor for years, you already know the shape of this story better than any outside account could tell you. That's exactly the kind of ground-level knowledge that matters when you're trying to understand a neighborhood beyond the surface, whether the question is a bridge, a school pickup line, or what a street actually feels like at 5:30 on a Tuesday. If you ever want to talk through what daily life looks like across Wilmington Island, Whitemarsh Island, Talahi, or the rest of the coastal communities east of Savannah, the team at McIntosh Realty Team is happy to talk shop, bridge included.
