Zoning and ordinance changes involving the property at 2180 East Victory Drive are among agenda items to be reviewed and potentially voted upon at Thursday’s regular meeting of Savannah City Council. The property, owned by local developer Jeff Notrica, was approved for a storage facility by the Chatham County – Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) in a 6-4 vote on June 11. The MPC decision allowed the property’s future to reach the most pivotal point of its potential—the July 11 City Council vote.

Notrica is a member of the MPC but recused himself during the commission’s vote on June 11. Connect Savannah reported on the MPC vote at the time.

A 1.77-acre site located on the northside of Victory Drive, the property currently has an uninhabited residential structure on it that was built in 1938. City Council could approve or deny plans to allow a storage facility be built on the property; those plans would include the demolition of the 86-year-old building which neighbors administrative buildings for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Savannah. WTOC reported on the item’s likely appearance on the July 11 agenda last month.
Eric Curl (Savannah Agenda) reported over the weekend on Notrica’s purchase of a Bull Street property near Victory Drive.

“Notrica recently purchased property at 2601 Bull Street through an estate sale for $875,0000, according to sales records,” Curl wrote on July 6. “The property is next to a former gas station Notrica also owns that is next to the 520 Wings restaurant on Victory. It is also located behind the building at 2602 Whitaker St. where another Savannah ‘landmark’ could be opening in a building Notrica also owns. Construction of the new Jinx music venue and bar is expected to be finished in the fall, possibly in time to host its popular Halloween show, Notrica said.”

A member of the Victory Heights Neighborhood Association, Lynn Adams told Connect Savannah in June that the neighborhood group (whose President is Dr. Felix Maher) would like to see the property be used for housing, ideally an apartment complex. She also noted the association’s affinity for the Toomer Home—the residential building currently at the site which was erected nearly 90 years ago.
“The Victory Heights neighborhood residents would really like to see this property go back to affordable single family homes, or multiple family duplexes like what is on the other side of Ascend Midtown Apartments,” she said. “It would be nice to include the historical Toomer home that is currently on the lot.”
City Council meetings begin at 2 p.m. and can be streamed live on the City’s Facebook and YouTube pages. According to the agenda, Joshua Yellin will be speaking on behalf of 2180 E. Victory Drive, LLC, the company owned by Notrica and prepared to sell the site for a storage facility business.
“I bought it when it was zoned as multifamily (property) to build 36 additional units on the property,” Notrica told Connect Savannah ahead of the June 11 MPC meeting. “I worked last year through the MPC to rezone it based on a plan to go from 36 units to 79 units. The MPC passed it, but then we had to go and get a signoff from the City of Savannah Parking Department. I engaged a traffic engineer to do a study, but the city parking and traffic (officials) were not comfortable with it, and would not approve it. I do not necessarily agree with their decision, but they had some valid issues.”
“They had some general concerns about the traffic. There’s a lot of things coming on Victory Drive, and so basically we went back to the drawing board to look for something that is much lower impact (for the property). And you can’t find anything that has (a) lower traffic impact than self-storage. A 36 unit apartment building will have about 10 times the traffic count of the self-storage.”

This article appears in Connect Savannah I June 2024.