In discussions of the westside site selected a decade ago as the likely home for a new arena, many comments have revealed confusion about the location of the property already owned by the city.
As the crow flies, the westside site is about half a mile from the site of our current arena at the Civic Center. That’s all.
Lots of folks seem to be having a hard time visualizing just how close that is to downtown, presumably because right now there is no easy access to the site.
The city’s property is just on the other side of the elevated U.S. 17 and over a canal that cuts through some wooded areas that aren’t nearly as large as they seem.
The geography separates the potential arena site from the core of downtown, but creating new connections would be relatively straightforward.
Consider for a moment all the development that we’ve seen in the last decade or so west of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and south of Oglethorpe Avenue.
The Thunderbird Inn has been rehabbed, and several new hotels have been built. The SCAD Museum of Art inhabits former ruins of railroad sheds.
We’ve also seen major investments at the Georgia State Railroad Museum, Savannah Children’s Museum, Frogtown Lofts and Savannah Station.
Much of SCAD’s student housing and one academic building are west of West Boundary Street. Muse Arts Warehouse, one of the city’s most vibrant arts venues, is nearby on Louisville Road.
With the creation of appropriate paths, all of those buildings would be within easy walking distance of the potential arena site.
I don’t know whether a new arena would spur development in existing neighborhoods off West Gwinnett Street and Stiles Avenue. A lot would probably depend on the streetscape and on the frequency of events.
But the westside arena site is a logical extension of downtown area development patterns that we’ve seen over the last couple of decades.
In moving the arena from the core of the Historic District, we would also free the current site for appropriately scaled private development that would bolster the property tax rolls.
Given a variety of issues, it seems increasingly likely that Chatham County voters will reject another round of the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, but voters already authorized a new arena in the SPLOST vote in 2006. We have about $20 million in the bank for the project.
Whether the westside site is chosen or not, the city needs to make a decision about the proposed location well in advance of the November referendum.
City Talk appears every Sunday and Tuesday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net and http://www.billdawers.com. Send mail to 10 E. 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.
