Let me just start out by saying: I don’t know a ton about this particular subject. I’m sorta new to this whole econdev game. But maybe that’s ok…I’m learning, and hopefully it gives me a “fresh” perspective.
Still, being an diehard enviro-nerd with a flare for the dramatic, when I read my friend and colleague Tommy Linstroth’s op-ed, it kinda made me think: “Mmm, dreams really do come true.”
Head of Sustainable Initiatives for Melaver Inc., Linstroth is one of Savannah’s most learned Champions of the Green. (Plus, he rocks earrings in both ears, Wisconsin style. What’s not to love?)
In the Savannah Morning News this week, Tommy Boy throws out the idea that the solution to this whole mega-site problem is the New American City.
The mega-site, for those of you who aren’t that familiar (present company included), is the big ole’ hunk of land out on I-16 that the old Gubn’a prophesied would bring the German automotive manufacturing powerhouse (Chrysler) to our sleepy southern town. Only thing is, it turns out he was wrong.
At any rate, this unfulfilled prediction left a one-of-a-kind sweet-spot of a site (1,500 acres to be exact) ripe for the taking.
Only problem is, it hasn’t been taken.
Stood up like the prom queen on prom night, she was. Apparently automotive manufacturers aren’t as keen to locate on the coast as they used to be. India and China are the cool kids now, and to the Toyota’s of the world, port cities like Savannah fall into the category of the Ugly Betty also-rans. And, it’s not just an over-seas bias…it seems the new slogan of the big auto peeps is something along the lines of, “Give me Middle America, or give me death!”
And your point is…
Not surprisingly, folks around town (including our favorite Uncle SEDA‘s veritable Chairman and FCB Pres, Brian Foster) are thinkin’ it may be time to start considering other options – like, for example splitting the thing up.
Or, according to Linstroth: Build the New American City.
Hmmm. We’re listening.
This fabled City is built around the concept of mixed use, mixed income, pedestrian friendly, sustainable communities (think Atlantic Station in Atlanta).
We’re still listening. (Intently.)
Here’s his logic:
40% of the tract is protected as greenspace for recreation and aesthetics (600 acres), 500 acres would be dedicated to industry/manufacturing and the remaining 400 acres would be urban utopia. Linstroth estimates 7,500 homes, 1.5 million square feet of retail/entertainment and 9 million square feet of office space. Whoa.
We could partner with Georgia Tech and the other higher ed institutions in the Creative Coast. The New American City can be a beacon for those industries developing solar panels, water treatment and other cutting edge technologies. And they pay their employees a lot.”
The county could benefit from the boon in tax revenue, job creation and attraction of big-named creative/innovative/knowledge-based companies.
The entire development would be modeled on sustainability principles (hooray from the fangirl) and geared (both commercially and residentially) towards us creative types. (Pause for negative visceral “classist” reaction.)
As Linstroth describes, the “N.A.C.” threatens to be a world class demonstration of urban planning.
I don’t know much, but to this layperson, that sounds just peachy and like a great opportunity for Savannah to shine.
(Still, the devil is in the details. I’m reserving judgment until we hear from the real experts in the room.)
Great article! May I also propose that we leave a huge chunk of it as a free parking lot. Then we can run the City’s new “DOT” shuttle busses (that are going to run on biodiesel) back and forth to downtown. Ergo, you keep the pollution out of the city and start to create more downtown ‘pedestrian only’ areas. Maybe we could change some of our, what Charles Landry called, “Roads” back into “Streets”
This makes a ton of sense to me. And Murray’s suggestion is great! We’ve got to come to grips with Downtown’s limitations (like parking)as well as its appeal (pedestrian friendliness).
I say we mold a giant plexiglass dome (a half-mile radius), drop it 100 miles off the coast, anchor it to the seabed, displace the water with air, and use hydrogen and oxygen from electrolyzed seawater to sustain energy consumption and life. Would be flippin’ awesome.
No, but really, I love the idea of a Utopia off of I-16. One hangup: will there be people there? I don’t really like people.
A blank canvas.
What an amazing opportunity. Breathtaking, if you think about it.
SAVANNAH: We bake cities from scratch, fresh every 3 centuries.
I’m loving the roads-to-streets comparison! Rethinking the way we develop, and interface, with our built environment. Ah, I’ve been Landryed.
Lucas, your comment brings to mind my favorite pre-teen fiction novel:
This Place Has No Atmosphere. Sustainable, utopic, biosphere livin… here we come.
So I got a question: Why not?
From the State’s perspective (apparently they hold the keys, not SEDA) why would they be incented to hold out for a pie-in-the-sky phantom auto-manufacturer over something like this? (Or chopping it up even?)
What exactly are the barriers? Why hold out for the pipe dream big fish that may or may not come? Is there precedent? Is that “what you do” when you have such a monster site? Is something like this less fruitful from a job/investment perspective? (I can’t imagine it would be.)
Highest-and-best-use issue?
Something like this could highlight Savannah as the poster-child for urban planning, design and sustainable development. Not to mention of course, the gargantuan capital investment and job creation (especially if you didn’t turn it into a residential Disneyland.)
What generates more public dollars for the City/County than building ANOTHER CITY!?!
I would love to see a transit-oriented development as others have hinted. Otherwise, I’m afraid the residents of New Savannah will the demand the widening of I-16 to 12 lanes.
Would this new utopian city be created and sold with or without impact fees? Any thoughts?
Give Tommy an A for stepping up.
Connect to Downtown with a blistering fast metro Rail. The train is levitated, propelled, and guided by electromagnetic forces, with speeds up to 320 mph. First, speed people to the Port & industrial west side, then eastward to the bridge, dart up alongside the bridge to Hutchinson Island for a quick loop and back along the other side of the bridge to a landing spot near the Civic Center…All Aboard! Now rip that sucker at full throttle back to Pooler and the parking lot. Maybe add at least one good sweeping curve to the rail so tourists get a 1.5 G thrill. It’s a mass transit/attraction system rolled into one. An uber people mover at white knuckle speeds. The instantaneous psychological transition of high tech to history alone would make it world-class and exhilarating.
Phil, who is paying for it? Would impact fees work for you?And add a to Tommy’s grade.
that was suppose to be a “plus” but when it comes in from my mac it was dropped.
Kudo’s to Tommy for his comments on alternative development of the mega-site. Actually a lot of people are thinking along similar lines and we are trying to get a dialogue started with the people who control the site; namely the Governor’s Office and the GA Dept.of Economic Development.
Being very familiar with the details of the site, Tommy’s suggestions on green space fit very nicely with the actual topography and existing wetlands. Replicating a super-dense development like Atlantic Station in suburban Savannah doesn’t make much sense but the mixed use concept fits very well into the layout of the site.
We do have a unique opportunity to build a leading edge, world class development, let’s hope that all the local attention to this subject will stir up some creative thinking in Atlanta.
Lynn,
Any chance of bringing up to the SEDA board the idea/policy that all new SEDA projects have to be L.E.E.D.s built to some level? I mean we are doing SEDA fees in lieu of property taxes and sometimes building the financing of the entire project (land, building, interiors)? Seems like you all have a golden opportunity to strike a blow for smarter planning and design in every new prospect. Whata ya think?
As a North Carolina born Tar Heel, I cant resist the urge to compare the potential of The New American City to the success of Research Triangle Park.
Ambitious? Yes! Perfectly in sync with the market? Yes! Achievable? Yes! Politically attainable? If North Carolina can do it Go SEDA! GO!
To stick with the North Carolina comparison (Go Heels!), what about something focused on education, perhaps a public/private partnership campus similar to Carolina North (http://cn.unc.edu/) or the North Carolina Research Campus (http://www.ncresearchcampus.net). This is something that all of the leading high-tech centers (Silicon Valley, Boston, Austin, RTP, etc.) have in common.
Alternative use? MOST DEFINITELY! But need we all not forget….our educational system needs a massive injection of adrenaline. There is progress being made as far as crime is concerned, but in order for “people to come” from near and far “education” is the missing link.
“People will come” “People will most Definitely Come”!
Education is a very large can of very squirmy worms.
It’s been years since I was in public schools, but, when I was there, there were so many problems with deep causes. Most teachers seemed far more concerned with their paycheck and internal politics than doing their job, and the students didn’t care because their parents didn’t care. Parent involvement was nil. Bureaucracy was venerated as a life philosophy. In 6th grade, my math teacher would approach me before class and ask me to explain the concepts in the day’s lesson to her.
To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets, the education system is drowning here, and I’m describing the water. But maybe this will get the discussion going.
Appreciate and agree with the educational observations. Thanks. Like hearing about the success of the research triangle in North Carolina. They do have impact fees in North Carolina however, and lower taxes but they have better schools. What’s up with this equation?
Without trying to sound too Pollyannaish, what can be foreseen here is the opportunity for a fresh start. What all the posts have identified is a variety of social ills that are plaguing us here – education, job opportunities, affordability of living, transportation woes.
Even just having the discussion of what the NAC could look like on the megasite creates a level of discussion which hopefully will lead to the identification of and resolution to many of the issues just mentioned. Even with a blank canvas, we cannot ignore what is not working in our existing society. But what it does do is allow us to create a model that works and can be replicated on a variety of scales. Regardless, the NAC or whatever alternative ends up on the megasite will take stakeholder input from across the spectrum, and the state (since that’s who owns it) and will be a long and drawn out process.
To address some aforementioned concerns in prior posts, the numbers I came up with occur by first cutting the density in Atlantic Station in half. This means there won’t be 20 story towers dominating a landscape. In fact, it would likely meet the massing of downtown, with a large amount of 1-4 story buildings and the occasional building hitting 10 stories or so. Transit to and from the site is always a concern, but by offering the cultural amenities and livability close to Savannah, you pull in all those folks who now commute from Richmond Hill and Effingham and beyond. They live here and work here, or work in Savannah, or the Port. The location for that is superb. How to pay for it all? Of course impact fees are part of the equation. So is tax incremental financing, and tax allocations districts, and private investment. A large bonus is that a lot of infrastructure is already in place, avoiding a huge cost (though it likely needs to be reimbursed). The upside is $15 million in property tax on residential alone, not to mention commercial property and payroll taxes, etc. Transportation is covered through the combination of federal and state dollars available. The end result is giving people a destination that attracts them to live and work here. That is a primary cause of why areas fail – what is there to drive people/residents there and keep them there? How is this community differentiated from Anywhere, USA? This is a one stop shop for new urban living – including the opportunity for new schools, cultural centers and entertainment.
But in my humble opinion, we have much bigger issues to address before we get into specifics such as exact density or how precisely we are funding this. It is overcoming the current mindset for use and opening a dialogue with those folks in Atlanta to begin looking at alternatives and doing a true cost/benefit comparison that will result in the ideal use for that piece of land….
An Atlantan’s take on Linstroth’s op/ed (as found in Savannah Morning News July 17 LTE):
Give new city a local flare
In his July 17 commentary, “Build new city at mega site,” Tommy Linstroth suggests using the Atlantic Station development as a model for redevelopment of the West Chatham property.
I couldn’t agree more. Having lived in Atlantic Station for the more than two years since I left Savannah, I have found it to be a great community, both in scale and accessibility.
We can walk to the grocery store, to restaurants and to retail businesses in five minutes. While more greenspace is always welcome, the large pond and park in the center of the residential section are well used.
My only regret is that the retail component of Atlantic Station is skewed too much toward national chains. Although a few of the establishments (Rosa Mexicana, for example) can’t be found elsewhere in Atlanta, most of the others (California Pizza Kitchen, Pier 1, The Gap) are staples of malls throughout the area. The unique concept of work-live-play is attractive, but it should carry over to the commercial areas.
If Mr. Linstroth’s idea of a new city takes off, make it unique, not a cookie-cutter image of every other community in the area.
RICHARD FOGALEY
Atlanta
I miss Richard Fogaley, please come home!
About Tommy’s post, I would be very careful about using TAD’s (tax allocation districts). The recent and dubious Savannah River Landing TAD should be good reason to look to impact fees as a funding source. With TAD’s, tax payers might well get stuck (for $54,000,000 – ouch).
John McMasters