By Eric Curl
July 9, 2023 – The developer behind the planned Starland Village development is proposing to construct another mixed-use apartment complex along East Broad Street on nine parcels between East Gwinnett and East Bolton streets.
Foram Development is petitioning to construct the complex consisting of two 5-story buildings with about 200 units on the upper floors, retail and restaurant space on the ground level and an underground parking garage.
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Located in an area listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Eastside-Meadows-Collinsville Historic District, the site includes a now vacant lot at 810 East Broad St. where the Faith on the Move Ministries church was demolished in 2021, along with currently affordable housing that would be demolished to make way for the project, according to Metropolitan Planning Commission staff.
While the National Register district designation provides federal tax incentives for rehabilitation of historic properties, the area is not protected by a local historic overlay district that would prevent the demolition of historic structures. Of the seven structures within the subject property, five of them were identified as contributing to the historic character of the Eastside district in the National Register nomination. The buildings include one-story, side-by-side duplexes at 610-612 and 614-16 Bolton Street and 611-613 and 615-617 Bolton Lane.
The petition to rezone the site from TC-2 (Traditional Commercial-2) district to a S-PD (Small-Planned Development) is scheduled to go before the MPC on Tuesday (Update: Tuesday’s meeting has been postponed to July 25, due to a lack of a quorum). Staff is recommending the petition be continued due to concerns about the number of units, lack of parking, and proposed height of the buildings. In addition, staff found that the petitioner failed to provide required components of a general development plan and that the proposed design standards are not complete enough for staff to review properly.
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Foram’s plans to construct a similar mixed-use development in Savannah’s Streetcar Historic District on a two-block stretch of Bull Street have not progressed much beyond the demolition of a former city building and partial demolition of a church school building where a 5-story, 58-unit apartment building is proposed to be built. Earlier this year, a partner said that the demolition would be complete in May and construction would begin in July, as previously reported, however, much of the school building remained standing as of June 30.
Foram has been planning that development since at least 2017 and a revised plan was submitted in 2021. The revised plan eliminated the event venue use for the historic church at the site, with expectations that the church space would instead be developed for commercial, retail and office use. The development also includes the construction of a 5-story, 59-unit building on the north side of the church, across 38th Street, where a former Savannah police building was demolished for the project.
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