By Eric Curl
Oct. 12, 2022 – The year is 2001. The city wants to build a parking garage just east of downtown Savannah’s Historic District and the income-based health clinic at East Broad and Broughton streets needs parking. An agreement between the two parties is reached. The health clinic will sell about half an acre to the city at a reduced price. In turn, the city will build a parking garage on the site and reserve 54 spaces for the health clinic over the next 40 years …
Flash forward to 2019. The city has decided against building the parking garage at the site, choosing instead to construct it at the new Easter Wharf mixed-use development east of downtown. The city trades the property with a developer, who sells it to another developer, Opus Development. The downtown property’s current owner is now building an apartment complex geared towards attracting Savannah College of Art and Design students, according to Opus Development officials and court documents.
In turn, the Curtis V. Cooper Primary Health Clinic filed a lawsuit against the developer in February claiming it is entitled to the 54 parking spaces the city agreed to provide two decades ago. In a court response, Opus contends the spaces were contingent on the parking garage being built and that the parking agreement also violated state law’s against perpetuities and was nonbinding, as a subsequent property owner.
Now the city is attempting to help alleviate at least some of the health clinic’s parking problems. The proposed solution? A new agreement with the Hospital Authority of Savannah, an entity created to further health improvements in the city that only meets when the occasion calls for it. Under the arrangement, the city will transfer property to the hospital authority. In turn, the hospital authority will lease the property at a rate of $500 a year to the health clinic for use as a 14-space parking lot. The transfer and lease agreement was approved by the Savannah City Council on Sept. 22 to settle a claim with Curtis V. Cooper, according to the meeting minutes.
Curtis V. Cooper served 28,000 patients in 2021, with about 75,000 visits, and is the largest health facility in the city that provides affordable services, the clinic’s attorney, Dana Braun, told the hospital authority board prior to their approval of the deal. While the city is restricted to a lease period of 10 years the hospital authority can lease the property for 40 years, Braun said.
“It’s going to cost a few hundred thousands dollars to convert the property to parking and fit in with the rest of the property,” he said. “You can’t justify that if it’s only going to be a 10-year period.”
Meanwhile, a local business that has been operating out of the city building at the site is being given the boot. Savannah Pedicab was notified in August that they will have to be out by Oct. 24, according to city officials. The building Savannah Pedicab uses as their headquarters can then be demolished to make way for the health clinic’s parking spaces. In 2022, the almost 30-year old business and its 30 employees will be moving to a new home base after more than 10 years at the city building.
The city has voted in a new council and hired two new city managers since the property was traded in 2019. The land swap was touted by the city as a way to serve the city’s newly acquired Highlands populace, an annexed community in northwest Chatham County that neighbors the fast growing city of Pooler. The city planned to build a city annex and recreational fields on the 33 acres acquired through the trade.
Meanwhile, the developer, Minnesota-based development company Opus Group, and the health clinic appear to have come to terms in regards to the lawsuit. The developer, who declined to comment for this article, has agreed to demolish the city building and pave the parking lot using its workforce and equipment, to reduce the costs of the project for the health clinic, according to the health clinic’s attorney Dana Braun. The apparent congeniality led the judge to postpone a hearing on Aug. 17 due to the parties having reached an agreement.
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