Hotel magnate and Savannah native Richard Kessler is preparing to reboot West River Street in a $200 million project that will give the decommissioned Georgia Power plant a glamorous new life.
The first item on Kessler’s checklist is to get a city-approved text amendment added to the Historic District’s height map to bring the current power plant into compliance and allow four other new buildings to surround it.
“The key thing we need is to get the approval from the city for the mass and scale of what we’re doing,” said Kessler. “That’s all we need. Once we get that, we’re turned loose to complete architecture and get everything really moving.”
Kessler and his team gave an update on the project at a public information session at the 100-year-old plant Tuesday as well as a workshop briefing Monday to the Historic District Board of Review.
“Our goal is to be under construction the first quarter of next year,” said Kessler.
He’s asking for the extension of two adjacent height zones to the riverfront and emphasized that no buildings would exceed the height of what already is on site. The first proposal would include the current six-story power plant and a similar-sized hotel and parking deck to the west.
For two proposed structures east of the plant, the proposed height would be a step lower, about four stories, and would be compatible with neighboring buildings, he said.
When the height map was completed in the ’90s, the height for the property was set at a two-story limit, despite its main structure reaching 95 feet. The height map was last updated in 2003 and has only been amended once since then, according to Tom Thomson, executive director of the Metropolitan Planning Commission.
“Everything we will be building will be less height than was here before,” said Kessler.
He said the height amendment will allow his team to finish their plans and start to present them to the Historic District Board of Review by late spring rather than have a back-and-forth between the Zoning Board of Appeals and historic review board for each individual structure’s height and mass.
“That gets complicated because there are five different buildings in play here. Rather than go to the Zoning Board of Appeals five times, we, in meeting with MPC staff, elected to do this as an amendment to the height map,” said Harold Yellin, an attorney with HunterMaclean who represents Kessler Group. “It’s a campus of buildings that are tied together, and we need to treat them together.”
Yellin also represented North Point Hospitality Group in obtaining a text amendment to the height map for their hotel projects on the east end of River Street.
The Metropolitan Planning Commission will address the issue at its meeting at 1:30 p.m. March 11. If the board votes to recommend approval or denial of the height map variance, it would next go to City Council at the beginning of April for a final decision.
The development, called Plant Riverside, will involve five structures, which will add about 400 hotel rooms, 26,000 square feet of retail, restaurant and entertainment space and 65,000 square feet of outdoor communal space to the waterfront.
The centerpiece will be a full restoration of the existing brick early industrial-style plant, built in 1912, as well as the later addition tacked on in the 1940s.
“There will be two different hotels, operated together, but with two different themes and ideas,” said Kessler. “This building as well as the parking will be wrapped with rooms, so it won’t even look like a parking deck, it will look like a hotel.”
Kessler initially had been working with an Atlanta-based firm but last fall hired local architect Christian Sottile, dean of SCAD’s Building Arts program and Sottile & Sottile Architects. Sottile will lead the exterior architecture renovation as well as the urban design of the outdoor spaces.
“It represents 100 years of architecture and Savannah’s first foray into power generation,” Sottile said of the historic building.
He said the updated master plan respects and complements the site’s long history as a “working waterfront.”
“It’s inspiring and of the scale that really can shape the life of West River Street, which has been dormant for so long,” said Sottile.
His concepts include the development of “pocket parks” for pedestrians, open pavilions and updated infrastructure improvements the city will have to make to improve the gateway to West River Street.
Sidewalks and an extension of the Riverwalk promenade would also be the responsibility of the city.
Kessler said his team is drafting agreements with the city over the publicly financed improvements, in particular the MLK, Montgomery and Jefferson Street entryways. He said he had talked to the city’s finance director and the “money is there” for the upgrades.
Kessler bought the site for $9 million in December 2012 and has been working with his team for 15 months laying the groundwork for the development. The property has already been rezoned from industrial to business, according to Yellin.
Kessler told the historic review board he expects construction to last for two years and will do the project all at once instead of in phases.
“I don’t want a mess stretched out forever,” he told commissioners Monday.
City officials have voiced support for the project, and a few historic board members said they were happy to see private investment in the area.
Notable projects by the Kessler Group include the Mansion on Forsyth Park, Kehoe House and The Bohemian Hotel on River Street. He also renovated the former Mulberry Inn in the late ’70s and the Days Inn on Bay Street. Kessler is the former CEO of Days Inn but now runs his own line of boutique hotels.
Kessler said he considers Plant Riverside a landmark project for his company.
“You’re looking at 800 new jobs; you’re looking at huge tax revenue; you’re looking at a positive ripple effect all the way down River Street that’s going to raise the tides for everybody,” said Kessler. “It’s going to create an entertainment district that Savannah really doesn’t have.”