By Eric Curl
Aug. 27, 2023 – The New York-based owner has sold a majority of the historic Drayton Tower apartment complex in downtown Savannah to another company based in the Big Apple.
Drayton Tower LLC, sold most of the 12-story mid-century property at 102 E. Liberty St. to Street Lofts LLC, a subsidiary of New York-based Benchmark Real Estate, for $37.5 million on Aug. 15, according to sales records.
The purchase amounts to about 70 percent of the building, comprised of condominium units, including the ground floor commercial space, according to Benchmark Co-Managing Partner Aaron Feldman. The real estate investment company intends to add value to the property through cosmetic improvements to the interior and exterior common areas and upgrading the existing amenities, with minimal disruption to the tenants, Feldman said via email Friday.
“We’re excited to add Drayton Tower to our portfolio and eager to unlock what we think is incredible potential in the property,” he said. “This project perfectly fits our investment strategy of acquiring unique, high-quality apartment communities in special locations that can be repositioned to create additional value over time.”
The building’s ground floor commercial tenants currently include A BEETTAN spray-tan business, an Otium fitness boutique and the Savoy Society restaurant and bar.
Most of Drayton Tower was purchased by Flank in 2012 and subsequently renovated by the development group into a luxury apartment complex, as reported in this Savannah Morning News article. At the time, some of the building’s 4000 Solex windows, broken or replaced with Plexiglass, gave off the impression of a “once–handsome gent with missing teeth” as described by Jessica Leigh Lebos in her 2012 Connect Savannah column about her adventure exploring the building at the time.
While Flank’s website is no longer active, LEFT LANE’s website features FLANK’s projects, which include the Perry Lane hotel in addition to the adjacent Drayton Tower. The 12 story “Drayton Arms” apartment building was constructed between 1949 and 1951, as described on LEFT LANE’s website. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2013 as an example of one of the earliest and most important examples of International Style architecture in Georgia, as described in this Savannah Morning News article.
After a media inquiry made Wednesday, LEFT LANE declined on Saturday via a spokesperson to comment on the sale, referring the inquiry to FLANK. No contact information was provided for FLANK.
Flank was founded by Jon Kully who went on to launch LEFT LANE in 2021 with his partners. LEFT LANE is currently renovating and expanding what was the Mansion on Forsyth, which was recently renamed as Hotel Bardo Savannah. LEFT LANE is also converting the Manger building at Johnson Square from office building to a hotel, as previously reported.
Related: Possible human remains found at hotel construction site twice
Building permit issued for hotel conversion of former Broughton Street Municipal building
A building permit was issued Thursday for the owners to proceed with a more than 4-year-old plan to convert a former city office building into a luxury hotel. Whether that means work will actually begin remains to be seen.
The 6-story structure has sat vacant and unused since the city sold the historic mid-century building at 132 East Broughton St. and moved the revenue department out in 2019. As a result, the Chatham County Board of Assessors voted in April to remove a preferential tax assessment on the building after the plan to rehabilitate the structure for use as a hotel failed to move forward, as previously reported.
The building’s tax appraised value had been frozen at $4.4 million since 2020, after the city sold the property for $4.5 million in June 2019 to the previous owner, Columbia Ventures.
The “Broughton Haus” was to include 45 rooms with a ground floor restaurant and rooftop bar, according to Lynch Associates Architects description of the project. However, construction never began and Columbia Ventures sold the building to Colorado-based M/A Capital Ventures for $6.25 million in March 2022.
Ryan Diggins, who is the registered agent and manager of the building’s current owner, is also the founder and operator of The Ramble Hotel – a 50-room boutique hotel in Denver. Diggins declined through a spokesperson a request to discuss the project, but did say work was expected to begin in September or October.
Jake Von Trapp, co-founder of Columbia Ventures, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Savannah, partners to rehabilitate Kiah House
The Galvan Foundation and the City of Savannah agreed to purchase the Kiah House property, located at 505 W. 36th St., from the Historic Savannah Foundation and restore the dilapidated structure as a cultural and civic institution.
The city’s portion of the funding for this initiative will be subject to approval of the Savannah City Council. Using its revolving fund that has helped save more than 420 historic buildings in Savannah over the years, HSF purchased the home, requested community proposals, and selected these partners to restore the historic Kiah House and put it to use for the community.
In their proposal to HSF, the Galvan Foundation and the City of Savannah outlined plans to partner with the African Diaspora Museology Institute and “to restore the former Kiah House Museum building to the ‘Kiah Period,’ establish a Kiah-inspired creative arts program that embraces the community and its future, and thus reinstate its status as an important community asset.”
HSF pre-qualified five potential candidates as the nonprofit sought to find a “preservation-minded” buyer for the Kiah house who will rehabilitate the dilapidated structure and recognize the significance of Savannah’s first African-American founded museum.
The nonprofit did not identify the other candidates, at their request, but they were all locally based, according to Ryan Jarles, HSF’s director of preservation and historic Properties.
Once the buyer is selected, the closing should occur within 30 days, Jarles said in July.
Built in 1915, the house at 505 W. 36th St. in historic Cuyler Brownville was transformed into a community museum in the late 1950s by the late artist and educator Virginia Jackson Kiah and her husband, Calvin Kiah, a former Dean of Education at Savannah State College. HSF purchased the property in 2022 after the structure had deteriorated as a result of a more than two-decade-old Chatham County Probate Case concerning the estate of Virginia Kiah, who died in 2001.
Special-use permit approved for Strange Bird
The Savannah City Council approved the special use permit for a restaurant with accessory alcohol sales at the SCAD owned diner at 1220 Barnard St. Ryan Williamson, the co-owner of FARM Bluffton and Savannah’s Common Thread, sought the alcohol sales for the recently opened brick and mortar version of their Strange Bird food truck at the site.
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