Greer’s RV Resort With Pool, Pickleball Courts Planned Beside Bayley’s Corner Grocery
State environmental records show the family behind Greer’s grocery stores plans an RV resort with a pool, pickleball courts and a dog park beside its Bayley’s Corner store on Dauphin Island Parkway.
MOBILE, Ala. — The family behind Mobile’s Greer’s grocery chain is preparing to build Greer’s RV Resort in south Mobile County, next to one of its stores on Dauphin Island Parkway, according to state environmental records.
Documents on the Alabama Department of Environmental Management’s public records portal show that GGDIP LLC holds a construction stormwater permit for the project. The site lies just south of Greer’s CashSaver in Bayley’s Corner, near the intersection of Dauphin Island Parkway and Fowl River Road, on the eastern side of the parkway.
What the plans show
According to the ADEM documents, about 10.25 acres of a 37-acre parcel have been permitted for development. Site plans included in the filings show the resort is designed to include:
- A swimming pool
- A bath house
- Three pickleball courts
- A playground
- A dog park
- Additional amenities
The records do not specify the number of RV sites, a construction timeline, an opening date or rates.
Road work done, resort not yet started
An ADEM inspector wrote in a report that construction of a road into the proposed RV resort “appears to have been completed.” Work on the resort itself, however, had not yet begun at the time of the inspection.
The property appears to be in unincorporated Mobile County, outside the limits of the city of Mobile.
Representatives of Greer’s did not immediately return requests for comment.
Who is GGDIP?
GGDIP LLC lists the same West Main Street address in Prichard as Autry Greer & Sons Inc., the company that manages the Greer’s grocery store chain. Developers commonly form a separate limited liability company for an individual real estate project, and the “DIP” in the name matches the Dauphin Island Parkway location.
A century-old Mobile grocer
Greer’s is one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the Mobile area. Autry Greer founded the company in 1916 with a store at the northwest corner of Water and St. Michael streets in downtown Mobile. When the company marked its 100th anniversary in 2016, it operated 32 stores in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida and had been owned and operated by five generations of the Greer family.
The chain operates under several names, including Greer’s Markets, Greer’s CashSaver locations and the Greer’s Saint Louis Market downtown. Earlier this month, Autry Greer & Sons sought Mobile City Council recommendations for state licenses to sell hemp-derived beverages at three of its stores: Cash Saver 35 at 851 Government St., Greer’s Saint Louis Market at 260 St. Louis St., and Greer’s Cash Saver 11 at 4055 Cottage Hill Road.
An RV resort would mark a step outside the grocery business for the family, though pairing a campground with an established store has an obvious logic: RV travelers need groceries, ice, fuel and supplies, and a market next door offers a built-in convenience.
Why construction stormwater permits matter
The permit that revealed the project is a routine but important part of land development in Alabama. Under the federal Clean Water Act, construction sites that disturb one acre or more of land generally must obtain coverage under a stormwater permit, which in Alabama is administered by ADEM through the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program.
The permits require developers to use best management practices, such as silt fences, sediment basins and prompt stabilization of bare soil, to keep mud and sediment from washing off a site during rain and into nearby ditches, creeks and wetlands. ADEM inspectors visit permitted sites to check that those controls are in place, which is how the progress on the access road was documented.
Stormwater rules carry particular weight in south Mobile County, where land drains toward Fowl River, Mobile Bay and the Mississippi Sound, waters that support fishing, shrimping, oyster grounds and recreation.
A busy corridor to the coast
Dauphin Island Parkway is the main route from Mobile toward Dauphin Island, carrying beachgoers, anglers and visitors bound for the island’s public beaches, Fort Gaines, the Dauphin Island Sea Lab’s Estuarium and the Audubon Bird Sanctuary. Bayley’s Corner, where the parkway meets Fowl River Road, is a commercial crossroads for the surrounding Fowl River and Theodore communities.
The area is also within a short drive of Bellingrath Gardens and Home on the Fowl River, one of the region’s best-known attractions, and of the many boat launches and fishing spots along Fowl River and the western shore of Mobile Bay.
RV travel has grown into a significant segment of Gulf Coast tourism, and campgrounds that offer resort-style amenities such as pools, pickleball and dog parks have become increasingly common as more travelers spend extended stays on the road. Pickleball in particular has become one of the fastest-growing recreational sports in the country, and RV parks marketing to retirees and families have added courts in response.
What happens next
The ADEM records indicate the access road is finished and the resort itself is still to come. No public timeline for construction or opening has been released. Residents with questions about the project can review the permit records through ADEM’s online public records portal.
