By Eric Curl
Feb. 14, 2022 – A historic 19th-century building next to a popular downtown dive bar, Abe’s on Lincoln, is poised to be demolished, less than two years after the owner of both buildings failed to get approval to relocate the structures for a new hotel on the site.
The Savannah Historic District Board of Review on Feb. 9 approved the application to demolish the two-story residential structure at 9 Lincoln St., after members stated they did not have a choice. The board members were advised by staff that the demolition could not be denied because a Chatham County Recorder’s Court judge had ordered the demolition in October after finding the building, which abuts the neighboring bar’s courtyard, to be structurally unsound and a danger to anyone in its vicinity. The order was not rebutted by the building’s owner and a structural engineer hired to review the structure found the building was beyond repair.
“Reconstruction of the building is possible, however, would invalidate any historical importance as all of the interior floor framing and exterior wall framing and sheathing would need to be removed and replaced,” according to the report.
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The demolition had initially been continued by the review board during a meeting in January, after Ryan Arvey, with the Historic Savannah Foundation, joined the board in voicing concerns about the demolition and said the court order was circumventing the review board process, according to the meeting minutes. Mark Dana, petitioning for the project on behalf of Savannah Hotel Investors, LLC, said during the meeting that nothing was done to aggravate its condition and the owner’s initial intent was to find the best way to use the shell of the building. After Dana cited the court order again when the petition was again brought before them last week, the board relented and voted in favor of the demolition.
Hotel developer Mark Smith’s LLC, Lincoln Hotel Investors, purchased the building for $500,000 in 2016 before he transferred ownership to another of his LLC’s, Smith Family Investors, in 2018, according to the property record. Through another LLC, Bryan Hotel Investors, Smith purchased the adjacent 19th-century building at 226 East Bryan St. that houses Abe’s on Lincoln for $1 million in 2017.
Bryan Hotel Investors also purchased a former GBI building on an adjacent parcel at 220 East Bryan St. for $4 million in July 2016. The review board approved the demolition of the 52-year-old, 4-story former GBI building, which is not considered historic, on multiple occasions in recent years – most recently in December – although the review board is requiring that a construction plan for the site be approved before a demolition permit can be issued.
In 2019, Bryan Hotel Investors submitted a site plan for the construction of a hotel that covered all three parcels and included the relocation of the building that houses Abe’s and the vacant structure at 9 Lincoln. The hotel’s proposed footprint exceeded the maximum permitted in the area, however, and upon receipt of staff’s recommendation to deny relocation of the buildings, the applicant requested a continuance and the applications expired 90 days later, according to review board staff.
The approved demolition of 9 Lincoln comes about eleven years after the review board approved a previous owner’s plan to rehabilitate the building for use as a bar and restaurant, according to the meeting minutes and associated documents. A 2011 structural review at the time found the building was in very poor condition, but it was possible to restore the structural integrity with proper design and construction techniques.
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