City Talk: Questions about costs, priorities as Civic Center’s fate is considered (again)

This is the City Talk column by Bill Dawers, a longtime contributor to the Savannah Morning News.

After nearly five years, Savannahians will finally have opportunities to weigh in again on the future of the Civic Center.

I encourage readers to attend the public sessions, but I haven’t seen any indication that city officials are rethinking the vision that was laid out at an April 2022 Savannah City Council workshop, which did not include public comment.

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In 2019, when Eddie DeLoach was still mayor, the City Council adopted the recommendations of the Urban Land Institute for demolishing the entire complex, creating a plan for fairly dense mixed-use development, getting the property back on the tax rolls and restoring Elbert Square and the historic street grid.

Even with the upfront investments in demolition and site preparation, the ULI plan would be a huge plus for city coffers and economic activity. The big downside would be the loss of the Johnny Mercer Theatre.

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After the inauguration of Mayor Van Johnson and the installation of a new council in 2020, Alderman Nick Palumbo and others began working actively to save the Mercer.

Those efforts came to fruition at that 2022 workshop that charted a new course for demolition of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Arena and renovations to the Mercer, including construction of a new south façade. The ULI plan was not even presented as an option at that meeting.

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Council members also directed city staff to study options for a new city office building, which would be constructed along Oglethorpe Avenue immediately north of the Mercer. City Manager Jay Melder told the council that he would have more information for consideration by the end of that year.

The city website even includes this sentence: “By the end of 2022, the City will be further studying this option and obtaining additional community feedback to present a more detailed budget and plan.”

And here we are.

After the announcement of the tight timeline for the public engagement process, I asked city officials for updated cost estimates, but the figures were not available before my deadline.

At the April 2022 meeting, Melder suggested that the Mercer renovations could be about $30 million. A study by Barrett Sports Group detailed needs that also totaled about $30 million, but that was in 2016, before a surge in construction costs.

So the Mercer work could easily take $50 million today, but it’s not clear what we’d end up with.

Even with a $50 million investment and a year or two of downtime, would a 50-year-old venue with poor sound and a problematic layout become a world-class venue for the rest of this century?

In a city with so many needs, I don’t know if we should invest in a public theater of the Mercer’s scale, but if that is a civic priority, a new Mercer could be developed, possibly even on the Civic Center site. The placement could allow for the restoration of Elbert Square and more efficient land use across the valuable property.

At the 2022 workshop, consultant Christian Sottile estimated the cost of the new office building and potential renovations of the Gamble Building at more than $40 million, so taxpayers would be looking at another $50 million or so.

So that brings the back-of-the-envelope estimate to $100 million. Given the ongoing delays, the complexities of government contracts and the potential problems with old infrastructure, the final numbers could be markedly higher.

I am frankly confused by the political choices since 2020. If council members are going to commit to a plan that requires spending tens of millions of dollars, they will eventually have to be transparent about the true costs and the proposed funding streams.

And they will also need to make the case for such a huge public investment in downtown despite the many other pressing needs across the city.

If they are genuinely open to rethinking options, the upcoming public sessions could be worthwhile.

Bill Dawers can be reached via @billdawers on Twitter and CityTalkSavannah@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannahians have a new chance to reconsider Civic Center's fate