Consultants Believe Downtown Stadium is a "Home Run" (Savannah: 2014, hotels)

[Airforceguy]

I wonder will the city pony up the money for a new stadium now. It would be nice for Savannah to have a new arena and baseball stadium.
Consultants Believe Downtown Stadium is a "Home Run" - Local news, weather, sports Savannah | WSAV On Your Side

[ellie]

Who paid the consultants? Who asked the citizens?

[SavannahLife]

They want to build at Savannah River Landing?

Instead of this beautiful plan to extend Savannah's grid system that we saw in this thread:
//www.city-data.com/forum/savan...-proposed.html Is this the site they are talking about building the Sand Gnats a stadium?

Now that was development that embraces Savannah and takes it into the 21st century.

Instead, a baseball stadium no one will go to, instead of this really nice plan WTF?!! So instead of spending money resurrecting the police department, cleaning up the streets scumbags, and improving infrastructure etc, we get arenas and stadiums. I'm sure it's not because Clowncil is getting paid off or anything.

[ellie]

Here you go: Bill Dawers finds a number of glaring omissions in the study.

Savannah Unplugged | Savannah stadium study leaves key questions unanswered

[Newsboy]

Well, you gotta admit that a fancy new stadium right on the banks of the Savannah River, and adjacent to the river walk (easily accessible to River Street patrons) would be a huge boon for the city. It would look beautiful and truly change the look of that area of town.

I don't have a lot of faith in the future of that parcel of land. The original developers have shown no interest in reviving the proposal, which -- impressive as it was -- was probably way too ambitious from the get-go. If dedicating part of the property for a stadium jump-starts other development over there, then I'm all for it.

It's worth noting that the "dream plan" for the West Boundary Street Canalside District (where the new arena is going) also included a baseball stadium. At least, the "drawings" showed a baseball stadium over there. I personally think the East President Street / Savannah River Landing site would be a better location for BOTH of them. But that ship has already sailed, since the City Council has pledged to build the new arena west of downtown to try and revive that gawd awful neighborhood.

[SavannahLife]

News are you alluding to the idea that we could combine an arena and stadium? As many here have proposed. That'd make a lot of sense and save a ton of money. And instead of two large arena facilities and two large parking lots that are both unused most of the time, there could be one of each. Would save on construction cost with economies of scale and also perhaps we could do the trifecta and build a cruise ship terminal there after all, as well. Hopefully collect even more private monies on that. Well, it makes too much sense to happen.

Sigh. I loved the Oglethorpe Landing / Savannah River Landing plan. That was a good investment by the city. And we did invest quite a bit on installing the utilities out there. That'd be the hottest new spot to stay for hotels and for new night life, if they built it like in the plans and drawings you posted.

Also the company that did the stadium report builds stadiums. Hm.

[WanderingImport]

Originally Posted by ellie

Who paid the consultants? Who asked the citizens?

Exactly.

I wish they would just stick with the Canal District plan.

SRL should stick with what it was originally proposed to do.

[Airforceguy]

Looks like council still isn't sold on a new stadium
Savannah City Council not sold on stadium | savannahnow.com

[SavannahLife]

Airforce, good.

100% I agree Wandering. Sav River Landing was a beautiful idea. Drawings looked perfect.

Now this Arena/Canal District, the parks along the canal and little ferries up and down it actually look neat. On the face of it, it makes sense there too. Perhaps it really will revitalize the area. Hopefully they'll convert the housing projects to parking garages and relocate the housing. But the arena site has some issues. Mainly, it's literally in a ditch that floods. I imagine the project will balloon far over budget due to this and other things. Which is why I am still opposed the arena. We should put more thought as well into projects and how they tie together, instead of hodge podge build a Arena here, Stadium there, remove ramps here, but have no idea where traffic will go, etc. For example building separate Baseball stadium and a separate Arena is crazy. If building them both, combine them into one stadium. We could probably build two Savannah River Landings for the $300 million the Arena will cost. Money would be better spent on the police and public safety, then transit, beautification, and infrastructure upgrades.

[bellhead]

The only thing I would like to see with it would be a 15k seat open ampitheater so we could get top of the line music acts in. This would be a huge boost to the tourism as it would draw a lot of people in for concerts.