By Eric Curl
April 28, 2024 – Indecision and inconsistency is proving to be costly to the city as it attempts to address an office space shortage it created.
The city is now set to spend between $3 million to $5.4 million on leased space used to accommodate departments relocated from a downtown building the city sold for $4.5 million in 2019 – one of multiple real estate deals around that time that contributed to the need for rented space.
The Savannah City Council approved a 5-year lease extension on April 11 for space at the downtown Coastal Georgia Center (CGC) at a rate starting in June at $553,660 and increasing 3% each year after. The extension comes about five years after the start of the original lease agreement in June 2019, with payments totaling more than $2.5 million since then. That total is now on track to top $3 million next year and more than $5.4 million if the city continues the lease to June 2029.
The city hopes to have a permanent location within three years, when staff currently working at the leased space will be moved into a new or renovated building, according to a city spokesman.
“The CGC is a temporary home for municipal operations but serves an important role as the customer service center for our utility department,” the spokesman said via email last week.
The city’s revenue department began operating out of the CGC in July 2019 after being moved out of the Broughton building following the property’s sale. Located downtown at 305 Fahm Street, the city operates a customer service payment center at the building and also provides office space to the revenue, finance, purchasing, and human services departments.
To accommodate the city’s need for more permanent office space, the city is considering constructing a new building on the north side of the Savannah Civic Center. No decision on that project, as well as the fate of the Savannah City Center itself, has been decided, however, and the city recently announced it will be holding a series of engagement sessions regarding the future use of the site.
The Savannah Civic Center’s Martin Luther King Jr. Arena effectively shut down in early 2022, when most performances and events moved to the new Enmarket Arena.
The city’s plans for the Civic Center following the opening of the new Enmark Arena have not been determined and the city is planning to hold a series of engagement sessions to determine the building’s use. Eric Curl/Sept. 2022
The city sold the former Broughton Municipal Building for $4.5 million in June 2016 Eric Curl/April 27, 2024
The former municipal building on Broughton Street is now being renovated for use as a luxury hotel after the city sold the building for $4.5 million in June 2019 to a private development company, Columbia Ventures. After the initial buyer failed to move forward with their own hotel plan, the current ownership group acquired the property for almost $6.3 million in 2022 and recently began restoration work to convert the building into a luxury hotel.
<Related: Former Broughton Municipal Building on way to becoming “Savannah’s living room” (SMN)>
The city had the right of reversion to re-purchase the Broughton Street building if construction did not commence within 24 months of closing, but in 2021 the city chose not to exercise that option to re-acquire the property.
Meanwhile, the city is planning to renovate the Gamble Building next to City Hall to once again use for city offices after vacating multiple departments from the building in 2018 as part of a past administration’s plan to sell the historic downtown property. Preferring to retain ownership, the next city council under Mayor Van Johnson abandoned that plan after two previously approved sales agreements fell through.
The city initially anticipated putting the renovation contract out to bid in early fall 2023, but the design process took longer than expected due to unique conditions of the building, according to city officials. The request for bids is now expected to go out in June and a contract is expected to go before the council in September for consideration.
The city almost sold the historic Gamble building under a previous administration, but two different buyers pulled out of the deal before the Savannah City Council under Mayor Van Johnson reversed course and chose to retain the structure and renovate it for future city use. Eric Curl/July 2019
The sale of the Broughton Municipal Building was part of then City Manager Rob Hernandez’s plan to sell multiple properties in order to fund a new City building next to the Enmarket Arena. In December 2019, the city also sold the former Catholic Diocese building at East Broad and Liberty streets, which it had only owned for about 4 years and never occupied. The building is now being renovated for use as part of an apartment complex. Another apartment complex is also being built at Price and Oglethorpe after the city sold the formerly vacant site that same month.
Not all of the city’s property sales from the Hernandez and Mayor Eddie DeLoach era have moved forward as intended.
Previously the location of the Savannah Police department’s traffic division, a former city property at 2115 Bull St. is still sitting vacant after the city sold the site to the developer of the long-stalled Starland Village mixed-use development in November 2018.
In addition, a former city fire station at 6 West Henry St. continues to sit unused almost five years after the city sold the property in August 2019 to a developer with plans to renovate the building for use as an 80-seat neighborhood cafe. Plans were recently submitted to renovate a shuttered downtown city fire station for what the building’s owner says will be used as a local produce market, as reported Sunday.
The city is still considering constructing a new city building next to the Enmarket Arena, along with other locations, to address the shortage of office space, according to the city spokesperson.
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