13 posts tagged “savannah river landing”
It seems we gots ourselves a gen-u-wine reporter type in Savannah!
It seems everyone else is fine just pretending our resident naked emperor, Savannah River Landing, is fully swaddled.
It ain’t.
Despite their website which continues to boast –
“You're looking for that ultimate calm on your special spa day. That's why we've made pampering a cinch. Our location is a pleasure to visit and there's never a parking hassle. Choose from the latest luxury treatments and allow our salon experts to relax and beautify all your troubles away. “
So, looking for that ultimate calm on my special spa day, I drove out there and was disappointed to find it has the same litterbox appearance it’s sported since the BIG Ribbon Cutting and not a salon expert in sight.
Then today I run across this on the GPB website:
“'Riverwalk To Nowhere' Almost Finished”
You have to love Mr. Montoya for having the guts to say that Savannah River Landing doesn't exist especially since everyone else in the media seems unwilling.
He even asked about the “receivership” rumor:
“A company spokesman wouldn't speculate on when "vertical construction" would begin, but did deny rumors that the project was in receivership. "We are re-working the financing," said Steven Johnson, a spokesman for Ambling Corp., the developer. "But we're still here and we still believe in the viability of this project."
“Reworking the financing” I have to remember that the next time I get overdrawn and have to ask my sainted mother for an advance on my allowance.
Meanwhile the city is about to finish our very expensive taxpayer funded riverwalk that, for the time being, will only lead to the biggest sand box you ever did see.
Okay, I recognize that this is a small thing. I understand that in the great expanse of our vast universe this is a historically small thing but still… it bugged me and I will address it.
“Approved a financial plan to sell or refinance about $78 million in municipal bonds. About $35 million would pay for road improvements around Savannah River Landing and for major water and sewer projects.”
Ms. Conn is writing about the “other action” at City Council this week and as is typical buries the biggest, most expensive and most far reaching news at the very bottom. But that is not what is bugging me.
No, what bugs me in this is the characterization of the newly funded projects as being “around Savannah River Landing”.
First, there is no Savannah River Landing. There is nothing there. There is not likely to be anything there by the time these improvements are finished.
No one is likely to say “oh take that road out by Savannah River Landing” or “I got stuck in traffic at Savannah River Landing” because there is no Savannah River Landing.
City Council is spending our bond money on road improvements along President Street and General McIntosh. The only role Savannah River Landing has in that would be to pay for it with an increase in tax revenue if they ever built anything which seems highly unlikely in the near term.
Ms. Conn seemed far more fascinated with the request for an alcohol license by Mr. Seaborne Tompkins. Actually Mr. Tompkins did not make the request at Council he brought a mouthpiece in the form of Chatham County Commissioner Dean Kicklighter.
Looking at my list of people I want speaking on my behalf here…. Yeah Kicklighter is way down there, after that guy who walks around town with the “abortion is murder ask me how” sign and a poo flinging capuchin monkey.
Kicklighter made a classic mistake when trying to win the good graces of City Council. He kept going on about what the rules would let them get away. In this case, he was convinced that the rules would let them get away with having only 7 parking spaces for a business hoping to attract up to 300 people at a time.
That is not what this council wants to hear.
This council wants to hear about how you plan to provide 10 times the number of spaces required and how you will personally pick up every piece of trash in a 4 block radius and the one hundred and one other ways you will go above and beyond to make sure that your establishment will be a model business, beloved by the neighbors and forgotten by police because hey, nothing ever happens out there.
As much fun as it was to watch Diminutive Dean prance about, it is kind of sad that Mr. Seaborne has sunk his inheritance into a space that doesn’t meet zoning requirements for what he wants to do and is in an area that has caused nothing but trouble for the other bar trying to make a go of it there. It seems to me if he had looked at the rules in advance and done a bit of research into earlier council rulings instead of just trying to figure out what he could get away with, he would be in much better shape right now.
Sooooooo, Savannah River Landing, what’s up with that?
As they promised Ant Hill Estates launched their new website and it is very pretty… but… well I hesitate to say anything, but … the site seems to be suffering some kind of delusional disorder.
“Finally! Enjoy historic Savannah from a newly-contstructed apartment home! There's no better spot than the famous waterfront where you're never more than a few steps from your favorite downtown attractions. We offer 1, 2, and 3-bedroom options. Each beautiful unit comes with competitive lease rates that include parking.”
Are they pitching tents out there? 1, 2, and 3-bedroom tents? I know they have the parking, that’s pretty much all they have is parking.
“Metropolitan convenience with all the comforts of a hand-crafted home. Open floor plans include two-story lofts, chic city flats, and rooftop garden penthouses. The well-appointed building features a grilling patio, media room and a terrace pool deck. Each residence comes with its own parking, laundry, storage, balcony and stunning view!”
Ummm and we’re looking, we’re looking and no I can’t find it. What “well-appointed building” would that be?
“Come and sidewalk shop in breezy coastal splendor. Finally a kid-friendly downtown where finding a parking spot is nothing short of simple. Once here you'll choose from classic brands or Savannah's variety of chic boutiques. Grab a cappuccino and a park bench for the complete European experience.”
Again, no trouble finding parking but I don’t know where they are hiding those “chic boutiques”. Maybe they’re under the sand?
The City of Savannah seems to be going along with the delusion that there is something out there other than dirt. Leaders are being asked to issue $20 million dollars in bonds backed by the taxes generated by Savannah River Landing. Officially it will be backed by all development in the President Street Corridor Tax Allocation District.
Of course you don’t get much tax revenue off an ant hill so if nothing gets built there we the taxpayers will be on the hook for the bonds. That being said, the improvements the money will pay for will be nice, President Street will be wider, General McIntosh will drain better and the whole area will be prettier so it’s not for naught.
Question: Should folks that are asking the City Council for a liquor license insult the city on their myspace page?
This caught my eye for several reasons, mostly because of the name of the company:
“Seaborne Tompkins for Saule Goode, LLC d/b/a The Iguana Room "Live Entertainment Hall", requesting a liquor, beer, and wine (drink) license at 103-105 N. Fahm Street, which is located between River and Indian Streets in District 1.”
Get it? “Saule Goode LLC” or “It’s All Good LLC”. Yeah we gots ourselves a brain trust here folks.
The other thing that grabbed me is that this appears to be the Tompkins Dynasty attempting to start another enterprise.
The family that brought you Malones, Deja Groove and Sorry
Charlies seems to be attempting to resurrect the Iguana Room.
The Lizard Lounge, as I used to call it, was above Malone’s in City Market now they want to set up shop at Jarrells Gym on Fahm St.
A quick google search turned up Mr. Tomkins’ myspace page on which he posted the following:
“city sucks
you know i really think we just need to take over this state. just do it an be done with it. i can really say with out a doubt that this place sucks the city will take everything they can from u an when u say anything about it the blacklist u from every doing anything again. ive live here for forty years an i have never seen it this bad”
All I can say is good luck with that.
A couple of updates based on information that some readers have been searching for on the site over the past few weeks.
It seems last week’s “What up Savannah River Landing?” piece just happened to coincide with plans for the company to completely revamp their website.
No really it was a total coincidence.
Seriously it had nothing at all to do with the fact that I pointed out all the outdated information and unfulfilled promises still present on their current site.
According to Ms Conn:
“Savannah River Landing continues to operate from trailers on the site. On Monday, the project plans to unveil a new Web site, said Kate Freeman, the company's marketing and community relations manager.
Sales efforts continue on the residential, commercial and retail front, but she said she could not disclose any information about whether any new commercial or retail clients had been signed up.”
As to why they haven’t built anything, according to someone I respect a great deal, Asst. City Manager Chris Morrill:
"Savannah River Landing cannot really have any economic development until we deal with President Street,"
Funny, I don’t think I remember hearing a single thing about
that being a Quid Pro Quo or an “if you build it
they will come” thing.
In fact the SRL folks specifically quoted “construction start” dates in 2007, 2008, 2009 and most recently “next year, as company officials have stated.” Is that next year or when we get to next year will it still be starting “next year”?
None of Savannah River Landings published materials said anything about the road needing to come first.
I think Mr. Morrill misspoke. Let me put it this way, I hope he misspoke because if this is a Quid PQ deal that is ethically questionable.
Anywho they say they still plan to build it… someday.
We’ve had a number of folks searching for Horncastle on the site.
Horncastle is the lovely little historic village in the UK where Savannah College of Art and Design owned a lovely little historic house that was reportedly falling apart due to a lovely little bit of neglect. It made headlines there but was completely ignored by the media in SCAD’s hometown which only seems to report the positive side of SCAD’s endeavors overseas.
It was first brought to my attention in Spring of ’08.
It was hit by a car in June and then failed to sell at auction in Fall of ‘08
UPDATE: While it has not made the news there or here, Queen Paula managed to sell the house early this year. Meanwhile the Good Folk of Horncastle have apparently moved on and are now making a fuss over other endangered buildings.
Speaking of the Queen’s colonization efforts, we’ve heard precious little about SCAD KONG since the American Consulate got involved to silence critics of our little Crayon Academy in China.
The official SCAD site for this little venture doesn’t seem to have been updated since it was announced back in February. Little has shown up in the Chinese media since the government shut down the roar of complaints over giving an historic building to an American outfit over the Chinese Artists Assoc. But this popped up this month in the South China Morning Post.
“The renovation of the
former North Kowloon Magistracy building is expected to begin in the autumn and
will make as few changes as possible to the structure, says an expert with the
American arts college that was awarded tenancy of the historic building.
Savannah College of Art and Design's preservation specialist Bob Dickensheets,
who moved to Hong Kong two months ago, said the heritage impact assessment of
the building had begun and he expected it to be completed soon. The college
will open next year.”
The SCMP is a subscription based site so I’ve linked you to
another site that repeats much of the article.
The article sounds a bit like a press release but again, SCAD seems to have made it onto the “thou shalt not print dissent” list or whatever the Chinese Communists call the stuff they don’t allow.
Addendum: Monday, June 15, 2009 2:06:51 PM
From TWITTER: Savannah River Landing website back after 3 days off. Claims construction begins in 2008. I guess they have a TARDIS http://is.gd/12EPS
Addendum: Friday, June 12, 2009 8:37:25 PM
From TWITTER: WOW! Savannah River Landing Website is just GONE. http://is.gd/10huJ Wonder if it's anything to do with ?? I was asking? http://is.gd/10hxA
Soooooo um… Savannah River Landing?
Is this thing just over? I mean is it officially over? Have they officially said somewhere that they just ain’t gonna build nothing over on the nicest ant mound in the city?
I ask because, if they did, I missed it.
According to this story from back in March, the Riverwalk extension built by the city should be done but I don't remember hearing anything about a ribbon cutting. I guess they didn't want to embarrass the Savannah River Landing folk by inviting those uncomfortable questions about the fact that while the city has undertaken and finished a somewhat difficult construction project; SRL has yet to lay a single brick.
The last actual report specifically on the project locally was like 10 months ago in August of 2008. It did explain how some stupid someone didn’t clear the easements on the property and ended up screwing them but other than that it was a bunch of newspeak nonsense that basically said they were shifting their focus from homes to a retail/commercial development in the near term.
“When plans for Savannah River Landing were announced, grand estates along the river and high-rise condos were expected to be erected shortly. But a changing economy has shifted the developer's priorities. ‘At this point in the economic cycle, it may take longer to presell or prelease (residential properties)," King said.
Now, construction of rental apartments as well as office and retail space is most likely to come first. There's been a lot of interest in apartments, King said, and they're ‘less subject to the economic cycle.’ Ambling is also starting to plan for office space. Office condos as well as offices for lease will be offered.”
Our blog buddy SavannahRed was out there in October and filed this report with some awesome photos of the nothingness.
The last thing I saw was a passing glance in this story from May 09 on office space in the city:
“Currently, the only significant office project on the drawing board for downtown, Mouchet said, is Savannah River Landing - a proposed mixed-use development with retail, office, residential and hospitality on a 40-acre footprint just east of the Marriott Savannah Riverfront.
The development calls for some 350,000 square feet of potential office space. But, while construction on the retail and residential components of Savannah River Landing is expected to begin sometime next year, it's not likely work will begin on the office segment until an anchor tenant is locked down, Mouchet said.”
Since then…
The Newsletter section of the official SRL website stops in May of 2008.
The Newsroom section of the official SRL website stops in July of 2008
The Class-A Offices section still states “Slated for construction in 2008…”
The Copyright information still states “©2008 ALR Oglethorpe, LLC. All rights reserved.”
Alright now all you intrepid Savannah ink slingers get to work. What’s the dealio yo?
Some Tuesday Randomness
Strange Visitors
Weird visitors to the site of late, yesterday we saw not one, not two but three investment firms visit little ole Estúpido.
Metropolitan West Capital Management
Fahnestock & Co. (Oppenheimer)
RBC CAPITAL MARKETS CORPORATION
What they were possibly hoping to glean from my mischievous missives is a mystery but they came nonetheless and read several posts on Morris and Media General.
Hmmmmmm.
Strange Visitors Not Coming to Savannah
Our humble city has lost another convention. The Ghost Geeks are going to Salem instead of Savannah this year.
Ghostock, no seriously that is what they call it... I mean it, they have a website and everything…. Anyway, the folks from Ghostock, after six consecutive years in Savannah, are taking their ectoplasm to Salem Mass this year.
So disappointing news for those of you looking forward to auditing panels like A COMMON SENSE APPROACH TO PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS AND EVIDENCE REVIEW or the Rock Band Video Game Competitions…
Wait what? Rock Band Video Game? What does that have to do with…
Whatever happened to…
Remember back in the Spring of ’07 when Savannah River Landing had that big press conference and released that cool video animation of all those cool buildings that were going to be built east of downtown Savannah?
Remember how excited everybody got about how it was going to follow Oglethorpe’s plan just like the colony did back in the day?
Remember how they kept saying that people would be living there and shopping there by 2009?
Yeah? Well, hey, it’s 2009 and the area east of town looks like a colony alright, the Lost Colony at Roanoke.
My real question is why don’t they just admit that it’s not going to happen this decade and move on. People will understand.
Why did it take some Mr. Smarty Pants at the New York Friggin' Times to tell me what is going on with the economy in my own home town?
The article in Sunday's Times casts Savannah's business people as foolishly optimistic about the state of the economy and the prospect for a quick recovery from the current slump. It uses doomsayers from elsewhere to point up that our optimism is unfounded and somewhat quaint. It even compares us to our antebellum ancestors:
“During the Civil War, the relentless Union general, William T. Sherman, spared Savannah in his devastating march to the sea. Residents here think that the financial whirlwind will also ultimately pass them by.”
Yes, according to the New York Times folks in Savannah still make all our economic decisions based on a 144 year-old military defeat.
The Times did manage to educate me on a
few things that I must have missed in the Savannah Morning News.
Business is down at the port
and they have a hiring freeze.
“...the tonnage in those containers, rising at an annual rate of 10 percent or more annually through most of the last 20 years, has lately “flattened,” as Mr. Marchand put it, to almost no rise at all — the first time that has happened in his 13 years as port director.”
“Mr.
Marchand, saying the setback is temporary, has nevertheless frozen
hiring at the port. He is going ahead, however, with an expansion of
its facilities.”
We lost a convention?
“...so it goes across the Savannah economy: falling retail sales, fewer hotel bookings, a canceled convention, layoffs at Memorial Hospital...”
If true, those seem like the kinds of things that local folks would learn from their local media.
Am I being unreasonable?
And how could they do an article on Savannah's economy without discussing the largest example of sluggishness; Savannah River Landing?
Of course the Times does not seem overly concerned about the facts here.
“...the city government has postponed until May a scheduled 2 percent pay increase for its more than 15,000 employees...”
According to the City's latest budget we don't have nearly that many dependents.
“...the City of Savannah, a 2,600 employee, $300 million dollar full-service municipal corporation.”
So big grain of salt for the NYT but the SMN shouda done told us most of this stuff.
Dontcha think?
What was that word Charlie Gibson used last night, “hubris”?
I thank that means “you so vain” so I guess I must be all hubris-filled or hubrisafied or whatever cause I think the Savannah Morning News took a cheeky dig at me this morning.
“As issues go, the proposed taxi ordinances weren't terribly weighty ones.
Certainly not on par with multimillion-dollar riverfront developments or increases in homeowner property taxes.”
It was a dig or they simply stole my riff from two weeks ago.
They once again dedicated a great deal of space to new rules for taxi drivers that most people will never even notice but in this case I think it was okay.
A. Because the ordinance was actually voted on.
B. Because it was a good old fashioned knock-down-drag-out display of democracy in action
If you haven’t you really should TiVO the meeting on Channel 8. Skip through the boring bits until the well dressed woman with the wild hair steps to the podium.
She is wrong about almost everything she asserts but boy is it fun to watch a citizen stand up to electeds.
We seldom get to see folk stand up to our employees like that and I would like to see more.
WOW!
I guess they showed me!
A week and a half after Savannah City Council approved spending $1.2 million of your money fixing a mistake that is not your fault, the Savannah Morning News steps up and reports on it and editorializes about it and once again misses some important points.
Briefly:
The city awarded a $9 million contract to engineer and build an extension to the River Street riverwalk.
TIC was hired to pull up the old pilings that supported a 19th century dock on the site.
They discovered that the pilings were connected to a massive wooden support platform about 20 feet down and yanked it up too.
They then proceeded to build our $9 million riverwalk.
Surprise!
Pulling up a massive wooden platform from 20 feet below the riverbed caused the ground under our $9 million dollar riverwalk to become unstable and the whole thing started to shift.
Questions:
Why didn’t TIC stop after they discovered the big honking wooden platform that wasn’t supposed to be there?
Why didn’t they wait until the engineers could check to see if the ground was stable to build on after pulling up the big honking wooden platform that was holding the riverbed up?
Why am I being asked to pay more because they didn’t have the common sense to tell somebody that conditions on the ground where not in any way similar to what was presented before the project began?
To their credit the editorial staff does ask a couple of these in today’s editorial.
Of course that just points out that their reporter didn’t get those answers before writing yesterday’s article. She had a week and a half since our $9 million riverwalk became our $10 million riverwalk.
Why didn’t she track down the answers instead of just talking to the city employees?
Oy vey!
Soooooooo we are building an extension to our famed River Street riverwalk to run past the planned Savannah River Landing.
We broke ground on the new riverwalk the same day Savannah River Landing broke ground on what were to be the first townhomes.
We are dutifully building the riverwalk spending millions in state and local taxpayer money and are about to spend more than a million more(I’ll get to that in a minute), while Savannah River Landing does what?
NOTHING, that’s what!
“…the remaining infrastructure likely won't be completed until the riverwalk extension is complete.”
That is a far cry from March 1st 2007:
“The developers expect to start building soon and to have some hotel and retail spaces available by the end of the year.”
The date for actual bricklaying at the site has been pushed back ever since the damn thing was announced. The latest excuse for the delays is some undiscovered easement. What kind of idiot moves forward, and starts selling, an $800 million project without making sure they had the required easements?
They are also lamenting the economy while at the same time saying everything is just fine:
“The developers, Valdosta-based Ambling Companies, need more of a commitment from home buyers and businesses before building the residential, office and retail spaces.”
“It’s timing, and the timing is primarily impacted right now by current economic cycles," said Kevin King, principal in charge of Savannah River Landing. "We're not seeing a lack of interest or a change in demographics.”
So wait, there is no lack of interest but you need more of a commitment?
OOOOKAY, whatever you say bub.
Back to the taxpayers’ role in this little economic sleight of hand, it turns out building the riverwalk is going to cost us a whole lot more than we first thought.
We hired a company to do it back in January. They were supposed to dig out all the old docks and such along the riverside and build the new brick bridge and they agreed to do it all for $8.8 million. The next lowest bid was $10.4 million.
Remember that difference it becomes important in a minute.
Well, it seems, once them fellers got down into the water, removing them old docks and piles and such, they found it was a little more complicated than first thought.
“…it was discovered that hidden 12 to 15 feet beneath the river bottom, many of these piles were connected by a nearly continuous, massive heavy timber mat fastened together using steel rods and spikes.”
From Savannah City Council Agenda 8/28/08(you will need to download the document to your desktop to read it.)
Apparently this company, which has extensive experience doing this sort of thing along the Savannah river, had never encountered anything like this before but rather than stop and try to figure out why this was there or why our ancestors chose to do it this way and what might happen if they yanked it up, they just yanked it up and removed the whole thing.
Turns out they shouldn’t oughta done that.
“…that removal of the mat-like structure had disturbed the top 12 to 15 feet of the soils to such an extent that the bulkhead would not be stable as designed.”
“In order to stabilize the bulkhead the design engineer determined it will be necessary to install an anchor system consisting of anchor piles and anchor rods along the entire length of the bulkhead. Nearly 200 of these anchor structures will be required. In addition, the amount of rip rap at the base of the bulkhead on the river side beneath the riverwalk will be nearly doubled. The cost of the additional work is $1,224,540.”
So now, instead of costing $8.8 million of our hard earned state and local tax dollars, it will cost us $10 million and some change. So if City Council approves the change order we will be paying almost the same amount of the next lowest bid.
You have to ask yourself:
Don’t they build a million or two into the bid as a contingency against unexpected cost?
Did the other bidders, who went as high as $13 million, know something the low bidder did not?
Did the low bidder know it would cost more but decided to underestimate knowing they could come back with a change order?
If they had left the big long thing under the ground and just built on top would it have cost us that much?
I hope we will get answers to some of these questions on Thursday when City Council sits down to spend a million dollars more on a project that was already costing us almost a million dollars more than we expected to pay.
