By Eric Curl
Sept. 20, 2022 – Elvis left the building in 1977. Everyone else followed suit about 45 years later.
After almost five decades of concerts, sporting events and dance performances, the Martin Luther King Jr. Arena’s days as downtown Savannah’s premier entertainment venue came to an unceremonious end in mid-January with a two-day college hockey tournament. The new EnMarket Arena, west of downtown, is where all the big acts go now.
While the MLK arena’s days hosting hip-gyrating crooners may be over, the Savannah Ghost Pirates, the city’s new minor league hockey team, may bring some life back to the venue – albeit temporarily before the building’s likely demolition.
Under an amended management agreement approved by the Savannah City Council in late January, OVG Facilities is no longer booking acts at MLK. The management company is solely charged with marketing and booking performances at Enmarket and the Johnny Mercer Theater on the Civic Center’s north end.
About seven city employees currently maintain the Civic Center – about a third of the staff that used to keep things humming. However, those staffers could soon get some company. The Ghost Pirates’ owner, Zawyer Sports, is negotiating an agreement with city officials to use the old arena as a practice rink, ahead of the minor league hockey team’s debut in late October.
Starting practice so close the start of the season is typical across the league as teams build their rosters and await word on players that will be sent from their affiliates, said Bob Ohrablo, Zawyer Sports president. In addition to sharpening their players’ skills, the Ghost Pirates, an affiliate of the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights, is in talks with the city on how to open up the rink for public use, Ohrablo said. That will likely include public skating events, similar to those held by the city in the past. A youth training program is also being discussed, Ohrablo said.
“Since the ice has to be down anyway, our ultimate goal is to get people skating and develop kids leagues …,” he said. “How much of that we can do before getting our own rink, that remains to be seen.”
The team is planning to build its own practice rink off Fort Argyle Road in the outer city limits of West Chatham County, but the project is not expected to be completed until the team’s third season. While the team will have some practices at Enmarket, the new arena will not always be available due to bookings there.
A two-year agreement to use MLK is preferred by the team, but the city is only willing to commit to the first season at this time since the future of the building is still being determined, according to Bret Bell, the city’s chief operating officer.
“There’s a lot of questions we’re trying to answer about the Civic Center in general,” Bell said.
The city is developing plans for the Civic Center site that include the demolition of the MLK arena and preservation of the Johnny Mercer Theatre. A new city office building may also be built on the Civic Center’s northern end under the proposal presented to the Savannah City Council in April.
The city will not be responsible for repairing any of the aging equipment at the arena, under the proposed agreement – an arrangement Ohrablo said the team is OK with after having an engineer look it over.
“As an ice rink it doesn’t have a lot of hours on it,” he said. “We think the equipment still has life in it.”
The Ghost Pirates’ owner also has experience with ice rink equipment, having retrofitted a facility, the Community First Igloo, in Florida for their other ECHL team, the Jacksonville Icemen.
The arena agreement is expected to be finalized this week, with practices starting at Enmarket early next month. Meanwhile, tickets for the Ghost Pirates season are going fast, with more than 5,000 season tickets already sold, Ohrablo said.
The Ghost Pirates will play their first game of the season on Oct. 22, when they will compete in South Carolina against the Greenville Swamp Rabbits. Their home opener at the Enmarket Arena will be on Nov. 5, when they will again face the Swamp Rabbits. The team will also get some practice in during a pair of preseason games against the Jacksonville Icemen in mid-October at the Community First Igloo in Jacksonville.
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