Kessler purchases historic Mills B. Lane mansion
Local luxury hotel developer Richard Kessler has added another historic Savannah building to his list of acquisitions, following the development of Plant Riverside, the Bohemian and the Mansion on Forsyth Park. Kessler’s limited liability corporation, which shares the Florida address of his hotel development company, The Kessler Collection, recently purchased the downtown mansion at 26 East Gaston St. for $4.75 million on Feb. 27, according to the sales record.
Located a block away from the Armstrong Mansion that Kessler purchased for use as a private residence in 2017, it is unclear how the property will be used. According to his spokesperson, Allison Hersh, Kessler is focused on renovating the “iconic” residential property overlooking Forsyth Park and Drayton Street, but has not made any decisions about long-term plans for the property.
Originally built for Georgia banking magnate Mills B. Lane in 1908, the six-bedroom home is considered as an architectural masterpiece, featuring commanding Ionic columns, a stately brick facade, graceful swan’s neck pediment and hand-crafted wrought iron fencing, as reported on Jan. 25, 2021 by Connect Savannah.
Starland Village developer says construction to begin by July
The revised plan for the Starland Village mixed-use development in Savannah’s Streetcar Historic District was approved, and construction of the project is now expected to begin in the coming months, according to the developer.
“We’ve got all our building permits approved by the city and we expect to break ground somewhere in the next 90 to 120 days,” Victor Apat, with Equus Development Partners, said in late February.
Located on a two-block stretch of Bull Street in the area also known as the Starland District south of downtown, the planned development includes the construction of two apartment buildings and renovation of a historic church.
Equus was brought in as a partner by Foram Group, which has been planning the development since 2017. The revised development plan was submitted for review in December 2021 after Foram paused the project to reassess and ensure the plan fit the new environment the pandemic has created, according to an update Foram’s Travis Stringer posted on Facebook early last year.
The developer is now in the process of demolishing a former school building at the site, where a 5-story, 58-unit apartment building is proposed to be built. The demolition is expected to be completed by May, Apat said.
Submitted about four years after the Savannah City Council approved a rezoning request for the project, the revised plan eliminated the event venue use for the historic church at the site, with expectations that the space would instead be developed as commercial, retail and office space.
Apat said that the use for the church space is still “up in the air at this point.”
“It’s out for lease at this point in time and depends on what user comes in our direction,” he said.
Developer of former city property planning third attempt to get tax credits for affordable housing
The property’s new owner is not giving up on plans to construct affordable housing on former city property, despite two failed attempts to obtain state low-income housing tax credits for the project.
The Pinyan/Procida Development Group recently submitted for review a site development plan to construct the planned 42-unit complex at 1700 Drayton St., which the city sold to the development group for $750,000 in 2021.
Mario Procida, with the development group, said on Monday that the site plan was submitted to get the project “permit ready”, but that construction of the planned 42-unit affordable apartment complex is dependent on the awarding of the tax credits.
“Otherwise, we can’t make the math work,” Procida said.
Procida said they scored well among Savannah’s applicants, but not well enough throughout the state to obtain the “highly competitive” credits. In conjunction with city officials, they intend to work on boosting that score in order to improve their chances of success during the third attempt, he said.
The tax credit applications are due in May and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs doesn’t announce the allocations until late in the year, so it will likely be at least 2024 before the developer can move forward with the project.
Old Town Trolley planning downtown restaurant and distillery museum
Old Town Trolley’s parent company is planning to convert a former parking garage at 234 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard into a restaurant and bar with retail space and a museum.
Historic Tours of America is borrowing from the success of the American Prohibition Museum for the project, with a focus on the heritage and sciences of distilleries, according to the company’s regional manager, Charlie Brazil.
In addition to a 275-seat restaurant, tasting bar, retail shop and package store, there will be a mezzanine used for cooking and cocktail classes, Brazil said.
“Knowing there’s an audience interested in that heritage, we are taking it one step further with that space,” he said.
The former auto sales and service warehouse building was constructed around 1919 with a primary entrance facing Montgomery Street, according to the Metropolitan Planning Commission. Separate stores faced West Broad Street (MLK), and dwellings still faced Perry street, as evidenced by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps dated 1950 and 1955. A parking lot now exists on the west side of the block following the demolition of those structures some time prior to 1973.
The plans for the historic building are still in the early stages and the company does not expect the new space to be open until at least the middle of 2024, Brazil said.
