By Eric Curl
Sept. 3, 2023 – The Chatham County board of assessors is planning to remove a property tax exemption for the Savannah College of Art and Design after the nonprofit university stopped holding classes in what was the “Clarence Thomas Center for Historic Preservation.”
Staff is recommending removal of the exemption for the 115-year-old building at 439 East Broad St. following the relocation of the Preservation Design department in 2021 and subsequent removal of the “Clarence Thomas” sign in June last year.
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The building now appears to be vacant and unused, according to assessors’ officials and SCAD did not provide audit information about the building after it was requested by assessors office on June 26, according to the board’s agenda for Thursday’s meeting. After making a field visit to the building in August, staff is recommending the board remove the tax exemption.
The building has an appraised value of almost $1.4 million, according to the 2023 property record card.
SCAD did not respond previously to multiple requests for comment concerning the use of the building for a recent Savannah Agenda article published in the Savannah Morning News about the property.
Located in the former convent where Thomas spent his early years attending school, SCAD purchased the property that was to become the Clarence Thomas Center for $1.56 million in 2004, according to property records. The building was constructed in 1908 and rehabilitated for what was then SCAD’s Historic Preservation Department in 2009, according to a Jan. 2010 Historic District Board of Review staff report, when installation of the Clarence Thomas sign was approved.
Thomas attended the building’s naming ceremony after being flown in by real estate mogul Harlan Crow, as reported in this 2022 Savannah Morning News article about the sign’s removal.
The university’s potential loss of the exemption comes after the board voted in 2021 to remove a tax exemption SCAD obtained for the historic St. Paul’s Academy building, after failing to move forward with the building’s rehabilitation. SCAD ended up selling the building that same month to a developer who has since converted the former school building into an apartment complex.
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