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Historic Savannah Foundation continued its 2024 lecture series this week with a talk on the “Revitalization of Waters Avenue.” This installment of the On Our Radar series will detail efforts along the corridor to bring back its community-oriented economic activity.
HSF’s lecture series has been ongoing this year with recent talks covering the efforts to restore the Kiah House and one on the renaming of Taylor Square, and the series will continue each month through December.
Finally, the Juneteenth Fine Arts Festival has a new date after being postponed due to rain on the holiday weekend. The festival is retaining much of its programming, including headliner TG Live .
If you have neighborhood updates, organization events or news tips you think could be of service to Savannahians, send them to elasseter@savannahnow.com. Also reach out if there are stories here you would like to know more about. Deadline for the On Our Radar series will be the end of day each Friday.
Waters Avenue: past and future
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The lecture on Waters Avenue was given by community developer and preservationist Briana Paxton, who recently restored a historic building on the corner of Maupas and Waters Avenues. The building is now home to The Stacks Bookstore, Cast and Grey Botanical, and neighborhood grocery shop Goodfortune Market.
The talk detailed Water Avenue’s history of development, showing old Sanborn maps then the former businesses—belt shops, corner stores and lounges—that used to occupy the parcels. There was a host of “walkable, neighborhood retail” in the 1930s and 1940s, Paxton said.
“There’s always been that neighborhood-level business on Waters Avenue,” Paxton said, adding that the corridor suffered from post-war suburbanization and white flight.
The talk then detailed Paxton’s journey to restore the building, which employed five different incentives including federal and state rehabilitation tax credits. The project ended up saving around $70,000 in costs through the various incentive programs.
The building's rehabilitation won an HSF Preservation Award earlier this year.
Paxton said she made an intentional decision to divide the building into three tenants, instead of just one, in order to bring multiple businesses to the corridor. She acknowledged community concerns about the area gentrifying and said there is a difference between “gentrification and displacement.” Paxton, along with the recently revamped Waters Avenue Business Association, is working to connect with legacy neighbors, she said.
“We’re trying to make sure those older residents are brought into the fold and know that we aren’t trying to just change and leave them behind,” Paxton said. “But I think the level of decay we have allowed to become acceptable is not acceptable, and we need to make sure people know there is a higher standard and quality of life for Waters Avenue.”
Paxton finished the talk by acknowledging some dozen other businesses along the corridor, which include Jerome Meadows’s art studio and Kid Fit 360 Daycare, owned by Marcus Brown and his wife.
Grand Festival for Juneteenth Fine Arts programming returns
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Savannah’s Juneteenth Fine Arts Grand Festival was slated for June 22, but a spate of rain that day led to an indefinite postponement.
The festival is now back on for 3 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 24 at Forsyth Park.
Before the Grand Festival was postponed, the fine arts festival featured a week of programming. Events held in the run up to June 22 included a youth festival, fireworks show and dad’s 5k. The weeklong programming marked a double in the size of the Fine Arts Festival.
The rescheduled Grand Festival will feature headliner TG Live, the Performing Arts Collective of Savannah, artist Port SavANT', and performances by Candice Glover and the Bee Sharps of SCAD.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: On Our Radar: Historic Savannah lecture series takes on Waters Avenue revitalization
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