[Savannah Developments]

Well, its hard to actually pinpoint the exact amount of average household income, the census data indicates something completely opposite of what the real estate companies like General Growth (where the $61,000 came from), Kimco or Jones, Lange and Lasalle say the market has. As well, Savannah is still very much a pocketed city. Wilmington Island and Skidaway Island have 6 figure average incomes while as soon as you cross the Skidaway River towards Whitfield or the Wilmington River towards Thunderbolt, the incomes go way down. Gordonston still is a very high income neighborhood but it is surrounded by low imcome neighborhoods.

Now admittedly, I was looking at the Trade area data but still, Savannah's trade area isn't a vast area, 3 counties.

Take a look at what General Growth has to say:

http://www.ggp.com/properties/demoinfo.asp?smuid=568

[Savannah Developments]

i just had an idea for downtown parking.

yall know that ugly black matallic parking garage just off broughton right?

take that and demolish it and use the space to erect maybe a 10 - 15 story tower. It would be divided into two parts, virtically, parking on one side, and one the other retail for the first 2 - 3 flors and then apartment/ condos on the rest. you would then have not a terribly large footprint for a parking garage, but 10 - 15 stories of it, free parking for the tenants of course. top that off by doing the external facade the same all the way around, hiding all evidence, other than the ground entrance, that there is a parking garage.

what do you guys think? i know i come up with some odd ideas but i just want to see savannah grow to be a better city really.

I think the historic review board would have a cow with that proposal. They only like to see buildings at most containing about 8 floors. They should simply renovate the exterior of that parking garage to be more appealing. I agree that it is a really ghastly building.

Some other thoughts I have from reading the blogs are:

When the new arena opens in a few years and they demolish the MLK one at the Civic Center, they should build the IMAX on that spot. They could incorporate, maybe some boutiques and a smaller Whole Foods. That's what surprises me, we have yet to see one of those enter the market. I like the dome IMAX in Tampa at the MOSI, that would be awesome to bring to Savannah. Something needs to be done with the Civic Center though, it's a horrible looking building.

Now for whoever said Oglethorpe Mall will attract Saks or Nordstrom, that won;t happen for a very long time. Jacksonville, a metro area with 1.3 million people, is having a hard time attracting those stores, how will Savannah with a modest 300,000 people and an average household income of $61,000 be able to attract those stores. Jacksonville can keep things too. Savannah has had a hard time doing that for some reason. A Cheesecake Factory on the other hand would do very well and I keep hoping that it will materialize in the River Landing or on the Southside somewhere.