July 2018

148 149 Kern & Co., LLC is ecstatic and honored to be a preferred vendor for the City of Savannah. We look forward to a continuing relationship with many future endeavors. TOMPKINS COMMUNITY CENTER BRADLEY POINTE FIRE STATION #12 widening of some streets in the area.The largest improvement that will come out of this, however, comes from the revitalization of the canal area itself. “The Springfield Canal,”explains Shonka,“and the Savannah (River) flows to the north and then it in- tersects another canal, the Savannah and Ogeechee Canal.And that old canal links the Savannah Riv- er to the Ogeechee River, and was used to barge cotton and other agricultural supplies from the Ogeechee River drainage to the Port of Savannah. It was never very successful and was abandoned soon after it opened, but a lot of the infrastructure from that is still there-or at least the ruins from it. So we have lots of structures and things like that in the woods that will be part of our park develop- ment. But Springfield-we have to widen that canal. Springfield is a drainage basin where we probably have the most structural flooding in the city of Sa- vannah, and so,we are going to widen that canal as part of all this development and do some things to remove some choke points.And in doing so,we will improve drainage for people living along the canal but also, hopefully, be able to run canal boats up and down the canal, and use that as a form of trans- portation and also a tourist interest kind of thing.” “The city owns or controls something in the order of a hundred or a hundred and twenty acres,”Shon- ka continues,“and that will be the park and the Arena. But then, there are about 60 acres of privately held property that is right around this area- across the canal from the Arena, across the street from the Arena- that could be fairly densely developed. So all told, you are in excess of 150-160 acres.And we are also looking at a lot of follow-up development THE SAVANNAH ARENA (SAVANNAH, GA) with that.We would like to see some mixed-use, but there will also be plenty of residential opportunities -especially with the park right there.” Currently, there is an existing mas- ter plan for the Canal District and the Arena, but plans for the private proper- ty are still being conceived.“We don’t have control of that,” says Shonka,“but we have tried to master plan just the same and show road connections and what they could be.And we are working with the major private property own- ers; working with them to kind of come in with a common vision and further refine and add more detail to that master plan as we go.One of the things POPULATION: GEOGRAPHIC AREA: MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME: MEDIAN HOME PRICE: UNEMPLOYMENT: JOB GROWTH PERCENTAGE: QUICK FACTS | SAVANNAH, GA 144,717 108.7 square miles $44,670 $129,107 8,727 +1.2%