By Evan Lasseter, Savannah Morning News
A petition for a 5-6-story hotel at 301 Tatnall St., abutting Liberty Street, was continued by the Savannah Historic District Board of Review Wednesday to address concerns of height and compatibility with the surrounding area. The hotel proposal is at the vacant lot between the Liberty Street Parking Garage and the retail building home to FraLi Gourmet and Savannah Coffee Roasters.
While the item was continued to address height concerns, the eventual decision by HDBR has the potential to be precedent setting. Just yards across the street is the Savannah Civic Center site, which is slated for future development after Savannah City Council opted in June for a plan that would create developable land on the site.
"We recognize that the design of this building will impact and set a precedent for the new construction that will take place across the street at the Civic Center site," said Ellie Isaacs, Historic Savannah Foundation's director of preservation and historic properties. "In agreement with staff's first concern, the proposed height is not visually compatible with the surrounding contributing context, especially the residential structures to the east."
Height-related concerns were unanimous from HDBR members, and the meeting drew a swath of residents also opposed to a building of that size. The city ordinance used by HDBR to assess the project's appropriateness states compatibility is assessed by only the contributing structures in an area, most of which are 2-3 stories in the area surrounding the project site.
For example, the McCorkle, Johnson & McCoy law office next to the project site is 2.5 stories with a raised basement. The project site operates as a parking lot.
The site is within a Downtown Historic District Height Map area that allows for five stories, and a sixth "bonus story" is permitted due to the project meeting criteria such as applying for LEED certification. The project's architect, Michael Garcia of LS3P Associates, presented a rendering that showed the total height lowered by about 5 feet, down to 71 from an initial 76 feet, and Garcia said there was potential to reduce the height further.
"We do hope to continue working on this issue regarding height with several members from the (Downtown Neighborhood Association), with HSF, with any group that's interested in doing so," Garcia said.
HDBR member Stan Houle said that something in the range of 3-4 stories would be a range potentially more compatible with the surrounding area. When Houle first saw the petition, it prompted him to dictionary search the word "behemoth," he said.
While not in the immediate area, Garcia provided examples across Savannah where 5-story or larger buildings were near smaller, residential structures. Garcia provided over six examples which included Drayton Towers, and The Chatham dorms for Savannah College of Art and Design.
"This isn't an atypical development pattern in Savannah," Garcia said. "On the contrary, Savannah is one of the first cities in the southeast to have a high rise."
Downtown resident Susan Atkinson said there are larger structures that "dot and punctuate the city," adding some variation to height without dominating the landscape. On the whole, there are more smaller structures, which creates balance, Atkinson said.
Putting a 5-6 story structure next to the 4-story Liberty Parking Garage would throw the block out of balance, she added.
"I think that's the point is to keep Savannah balanced," Atkinson said. "Respect the homeowning, tax-paying, important citizens and residents of Savannah and manage commercial growth in a balanced way."
In addition to about 10 residents who spoke at the meeting, there was also a drove of online public comment on the petition. The online comments were overwhelmingly opposed to the proposed height, and many also objected to the hotel use on the site.
The Tatnall Street hotel was one of two major hotel projects initially on Wednesday's agenda. The second, a proposal for a 6-story hotel at 20-24 E. Oglethorpe Ave., was continued in advance of the meeting to address a swath of online public comment regarding the building's size.
However, the issue of use is outside the purview of HDBR, which assesses the appropriateness of proposals that would "result in a material change in appearance" to resources in Savannah's Downtown Historic Overlay District. Still, HSF CEO and President Sue Adler took to the podium to address the topic, which she said deserved to be part of the record.