Savannah held an open house at the Civic Center Tuesday night to ask residents what should go on five city-owned parcels in the Canal District, the Westside neighborhood built around Enmarket Arena. Housing, retail, dining, entertainment space and wetland walking trails are all on the table, part of the 19-project master plan City Council adopted unanimously in October 2025 after a community planning process Perkins&Will led starting in 2019.
Next door, the city is six months into a $9 million guaranteed-maximum-price contract with Garbutt Construction Company to stabilize the 1891-93 Water Works building, the steam-powered pump house that supplied Savannah's water until the 1940s and made the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.
The work covers asbestos and lead abatement, roof and truss repairs, masonry and terra cotta restoration and historic window reinstatement, funded through the city's tourism tax rather than general taxes. Stabilization is due to finish in summer 2027 and buildout construction is set to start that fall, but the city has not yet decided who will run the building or how; the city manager has called that a policy decision still ahead of council.
City officials describe the parcels effort as an equity push meant to let longtime Westside residents stay in place as the area changes.
Why it matters
This is the city starting to attach real uses, housing, a food hall, retail, to westside land the Enmarket Arena opened up, rather than leaving a five-year-old master plan sitting on paper.
Sources and documents6 sources
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