Savannah City Council votes to demolish Martin Luther King Jr. Arena, renovate Johnny Mercer Theatre

Caption

The front facade of the Savannah Civic Center, which comprises both the Martin Luther King Jr. Arena and the Johnny Mercer Theatre.

Credit: Benjamin Payne / GPB News

Savannah City Council has opted for a middle-ground approach in how to deal with downtown's aging Civic Center, as councilmembers voted 7-1 on Thursday to demolish the 50-year-old municipal complex's Martin Luther King Jr. Arena and to renovate its Johnny Mercer Theatre.

The 9,700-seat MLK Arena has sat in a state of disrepair for years, owing to deferred maintenance ever since the city signaled its intent in the early 2000s for a new city-owned venue, which was finally realized in 2022 with the opening of the 9,500-capacity Enmarket Arena less than 1 mile away on Savannah's west side.

The approved resolution does not lay out a timeline for the project nor does it provide a cost estimate; rather, it directs Savannah City Manager Jay Melder to proceed with initial planning.

Mayor Van Johnson, who voted in the affirmative with councilmembers, said that the resolution gives Melder “the strategic knowledge that he needs to be able to move forward down a particular door, which will create more decision points for Council.”

Two other proverbial doors were considered, but ultimately shut, by councilmembers: One abandoned resolution would have ordered the renovation of both the arena and the theater; another would have ordered complete demolition and the construction of a new theater at an undecided location.

Shortly after the vote, Johnson called the approved resolution “an opportunity for us to really strike a very good balance between our current uses and even our future uses, while also honoring our historic past.”

To that end, the measure mandates that the reimagined site — which, at 7 acres, occupies the single largest land parcel in Savannah's downtown Historic District — restore as much of the Oglethorpe Plan as feasible.

That is downtown Savannah's signature grid pattern of town squares, which was laid out by British settler James Oglethorpe during the city's founding — and colony of Georgia's establishment — in the 1730s.

On whatever land that a razed MLK Arena leaves behind, no new hotels or short-term vacation rental properties will be allowed to be built, as the resolution explicitly prohibits their construction while also calling for “an equitable approach to redevelopment of the area.”

However, Alderwoman Bernetta Lanier — who cast the sole dissenting vote — said that the approved resolution leaves behind communities who had depended on the MLK Arena for decades.

“Now we have to decide how we're going to deal with providing that kind of space for those citizens that advocated to deal with the MLK Arena issue,” she said.

But Alderman Detric Leggett — whose district spans almost all of downtown, including the Civic Center site — said that the resolution had earned his blessing, having heard from his constituents at numerous public comment meetings.

“I had the opportunity to go to each and every one of those visioning sessions to be able to talk and engage people where they were,” Leggett said. “And, as the alderman of the 2nd District, it sometimes would get emotional for you, because we've done a lot in that arena.”

In addition to the 2,500-seat Johnny Mercer Theatre, renovations will also be made to the Civic Center's ballroom and community meeting spaces.