By Eric Curl
July 14 (updated) – The buildings located at 111 and 119 Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard will be rehabilitated, while the center structure at 113 MLK will be demolished to make way for a public courtyard, under the plan approved by the Historic District Board of Review on Wednesday.
The buildings are owned by New York-based Tidal Real Estate Partners, which purchased the properties for $7 million in 2019, according to sales records. The development sites are part of a larger project Tidal is constructing to the immediate west at 110 and 111 Ann Street, where a 390-unit apartment complex is being built.
A previous plan for the sites was approved in 2018 and extended in 2019, but that plan’s certificate of appropriateness has since expired. The original plan was for an indoor market, bars, offices and artist/vendor spaces. The building at 113 MLK was not proposed to be demolished, but was approved to be removed and replaced with a new building. A restaurant is now intended to be located within the building at 119 MLK and office space is planned to go in 111 MLK. No plans were submitted for 125 MLK, on the south end of the building, which Tidal also owns. A restaurant, Repeal 33, currently operates at that space.
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The three buildings were constructed between 1898 and 1916, but are listed as non-contributing due to extensive alterations and loss of historic integrity, according to staff. Those alterations reportedly took place in 1938 and again in the 1990s. Carlito’s Mexican Bar & Grill previously operated out of 119 MLK, while a Japanese restaurant, Wasabi’s, had operated at 113 MLK.
With the proposed courtyard, the developer is seeking to bring much needed pedestrian connectivity from MLK to the westward development of downtown Savannah, according to the staff report. The courtyard will be open to the public and is expected to serve as a connector to public space at Ann Street.
The review board approved staff’s recommendation to approve the plan with the condition the developer document the building set to be demolished. In addition, staff recommended requiring the building be deconstructed so that materials can be salvaged for resale or used in new construction, rather than being disposed of at a landfill.
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