Investment in west Savannah brings change near riverfront (Martin: for sale, apartment complex)

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It will be interesting to see what this area looks like in 10 years...

Located on Indian Street just west of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the Dixie Machine and Fabrication Co. operates out of a warehouse that has housed similar businesses there for more than a century.

With the building’s recent purchase, the maze of black steel equipment inside will likely be hauled away soon to make room for the future.

The business sits in an area of the city that has been drawing attention from investors during the past couple of years, wedged between a Savannah College of Art and Design film production facility and a former fire station on MLK that was recently bought by a hotel developer.

Evidence of that interest could be seen Friday as workers busied themselves restoring a former nightclub building farther west on Indian Street for use as a liquor distillery co-owner Chris Sywassink expects to open for tours in the fall.

Aside from finding the building to be a good fit for the business, Sywassink said the desire to help foster the revitalization in the “up-and-coming” area was one reason he and his partner, Rob Ingersoll, decided to open Ghost Coast Distillery on the site.

“We love Savannah and want to make it better,” he said.

Other developments are also pending.

Rockbridge Capital has announced plans to renovate the former city fire station for commercial and residential use, once it completes a major hotel project across MLK. That hotel is south of developer Richard Kessler’s planned $250 million hotel development along West River Street. Also, the site of a former office building at the southwest corner of Fahm and Indian streets is expected to be developed as an apartment complex. That would come after the addition last year of the student-oriented apartment building, The Hue, about a block to the west.



New parking district

The activity has caught the attention of officials with the Chatham County-Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission.

A dramatic uptick in development requests and zoning requests indicates the area is making a transition toward more mixed-use commercial developments than the current use, primarily comprised of warehouses and similar businesses, Marcus Lotson, MPC senior planner, told the Savannah City Council on May 26.

“We believe that’s an area that in the near future is going to become an extension of River Street, an extension of downtown,” Lotson said.

To accommodate the expected influx of commercial development, the Savannah City Council on Thursday approved the creation of a new parking district bounded by West Bay Street, Warner Street, MLK and River Street.

The changes decrease the required parking and make the area a little more palatable for developers to come in, Lotson said, while not eliminating parking requirements altogether.

“They would not have to be relying on requesting variances every time somebody wanted to redevelop a building in that area,” he said.

The amended ordinance allows businesses to establish remote parking anywhere within the parking district and also on property within 300 feet of the district, rather than limiting off-site parking to within 150 feet of their property.

The ordinance also extends the shared parking abilities and allows for non-competing shared parking. Businesses open during the day and not at night would be able to share parking with a business that had non-competing hours. The new regulations will also allow some on-street spaces to count toward parking requirements.

Parking will still have to be provided and the city will have an opportunity to look at each business as they come in to make sure they do not negatively impact the area, Lotson said.

“Most businesses are dependent on parking, so if they have a situation where they don’t believe they can provide adequate parking they are not likely to establish,” he said.

Area business owners say the biggest parking challenge currently comes from SCAD students when school is in session. The area includes four SCAD school buildings, as well as a building along Indian the college is advertising for sale.

Glen Nicotra said there are occasions that his customers have difficulty finding spaces in front of the self-storage business, City Storage, he opened this year along Indian Street, but he still supported the less-restrictive parking requirements. Investment in the area is beneficial, Nicotra said.

Investment in west Savannah brings change near riverfront | SavannahNow