Reporting on the web
Updates are the permanent web version of Urban Savannah’s reporting—the story, the context, and the sources in one place. After a story moves through social or The Brief, this is where it stays. Browse the newest first, or search for what is changing near you.
Ellabell; Bryan and Bulloch countiesAI IMAGEMilestone
Bryan County filed Georgia DRI 4758 for Portman Industrial's Warner Tract proposal on September 21.
Tybee IslandFunding
Federal officials restored $12 million for Tybee Island’s next beach-renourishment cycle after the project was left out of the Army Corps work plan.
Milestone
The Bohemian Hotel Savannah Riverfront reopened in early September as Hotel Orielle, a 75-room Autograph Collection hotel on Bay Street now run by Davidson Hospitality, with a new rooftop bar and a Lowcountry seafood restaurant.
Opening
Left Lane has turned the century-old Manger building on Johnson Square into Recess Hotel and Club, a 221-key hotel opening this fall with a French brasserie, a members' clubhouse and a rooftop pool billed as the highest in Savannah.
Starland DistrictMilestone
Starland Village will add seven murals by Savannah artists between October 28 and November 6, capping its first Starland Soul Mural Fest with a public celebration on the final day.
Milestone
Effingham County pulled the Project Camellia site plan from its September agenda and told staff to draft binding limits, days before a state report put the data center's power demand at 3,210 megawatts, more than both new reactors at Plant Vogtle combined.
Unincorporated Chatham CountyZoning
County commissioners paused new large-scale data centers in unincorporated Chatham while staff studies land-use, utility and public-health rules.
Statewide Georgia; announced during an Effingham County site visitZoning
After touring the OpenAI site in Effingham County, U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock called for a statewide moratorium on new data center construction unless projects meet strict conditions.
on River StreetMilestone
A Certares and Clearview joint venture that bought the 351-room Hyatt Regency Savannah financed the deal with a $123.2 million loan from Goldman Sachs, arranged by JLL, as the city pushes to reopen the public riverfront passage the hotel was built over in 1981.
Chatham CountyProgram
The Savannah-Chatham County school board approved a five-year contract worth up to $18.95 million with Hoar Program Management to oversee its ESPLOST V capital program of about $705 million.
Milestone
Mayor Van Johnson says he is not sure Margaritaville fits downtown, but acknowledges the city cannot block the conversion of the two-year-old Ann Street Lofts apartments at 111 Ann Street into a 230-room hotel.
Chatham CountyZoning
The Savannah City Council's 155-day moratorium, blocking approval of any data center drawing 10 megawatts or more, is in force while staff study the strain on water, power and roads and write permanent rules.
downtown-adjacent West SavannahMilestone
A city-commissioned RCLCO study recommends adding apartments, an 80-to-100-room hotel and a restored roundhouse across five city-owned parcels around the railroad museums west of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Infrastructure
GDOT contractors will run intermittent single-lane closures on the Talmadge Memorial Bridge on weekdays from Sept. 10 to 25 to survey the span before replacing its cables.
near the former Ten Broeck Race CourseMilestone
The Housing Authority of Savannah's board refused to extend the Salvation Army's agreement for 2305 Augusta Avenue and moved to take the west-side property back, halting a proposed 200-person transitional shelter beside the 1859 Weeping Time auction grounds.
Savannah — citywideOpening
Colonial Terminals began operating Foundation 3, a roughly 25-acre multimodal breakbulk terminal on the Savannah River with an 810-foot dock, more than 14,000 feet of rail and 130,000 square feet of warehouse space.
GAMilestone
Georgia's Development of Regional Impact review of Project Camellia, OpenAI's proposed data-center campus in Effingham County, is now complete on the state's own tracking system: the Coastal Georgia Regional Development Commission issued its finding Sept. 1, 2026, with the process marked complete as of Sept. 6.
GAInfrastructure
A developer filed a state Development of Regional Impact application for a 669-acre mixed-use community on Midland Road and Highway 30 in unincorporated Effingham County, proposing about 1,000 homes, a public school, and roughly 300,000 square feet of commercial space.
Milestone
Michels Corporation has the progressive design-build contract for SeaPoint's planned private marine terminal, with construction targeted to begin in 2027.
all Savannah water customersMilestone
Savannah's stormwater utility fee, roughly $4.75 a month for a typical household and worth an estimated $8-9 million a year, began appearing on water bills Sept. 1, priced by how much impervious surface a property has.
Zoning
City Council froze new large-load data centers for 155 days to rewrite zoning rules, the same week Georgia regulators cleared the power contract for OpenAI's $20 billion Project Camellia campus in neighboring Effingham County.
west of downtown SavannahTransaction
SCAD paid $7.3 million for a former freight depot at 1123 Louisville Road, its fourth Louisville Road-area purchase since December 2025 as it builds out its film studio campus.
Savannah HarborMilestone
Planners unanimously recommended amending the 2004 Savannah Harbor master plan to allow up to 1,280 residential units plus hotels, restaurants and retail on roughly 100 acres of undeveloped Hutchinson Island; Savannah City Council still has to approve it.
Transaction
JLL arranged a Goldman Sachs Alternatives floating-rate loan backing a Certares Real Estate Management/Clearview Hotel Capital joint venture's $158 million purchase of the 351-key riverfront Hyatt Regency Savannah.
Opening
The city kicked off a $10.9 million project to demolish the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Arena by hand, the opening move in a redevelopment that is set to bring 200-300 housing units and 45,000 square feet of retail to the 7-acre downtown site.
Milestone
Queensborough National Bank & Trust won final Historic District Board of Review approval for a four-story office and bank building at Broughton and Habersham streets, after a preservation group spent months pushing back on the design's glass and setbacks.
Milestone
Tidal Real Estate Partners has filed permits to convert the 232-unit Ann Street Lofts into a hotel, following its sister building at 110 Ann St., which reopened as Ann Savannah by Marriott Bonvoy last year.
Budget
Georgia DOT and the Georgia Ports Authority opened the Brampton Road Connector on July 15, the last piece of a 12-year, $600 million freight-corridor buildout, as the port closed the fiscal year at 5.67 million containers.
Lathrop Ave. and across the Savannah RiverMilestone
International Paper has formally listed the 400-acre mill site plus 335 acres across the river for redevelopment, five months after closing a plant that ran for 90 years and employed 800 people.
Atlanta-to-Savannah corridorMilestone
Georgia's DOT is studying five possible routes for intercity passenger rail between Atlanta and Savannah, with technical and environmental analysis running through 2026 and no construction timeline yet.
Milestone
Records show Effingham's economic development officials negotiated OpenAI's $20 billion data center tax break under a non-disclosure agreement starting in February, and the public wasn't told until the day after the county signed.
Downtown SavannahInfrastructure
Tidal Real Estate Partners is converting the 232-unit Ann Street Lofts at 111 Ann St. into a 230-room Margaritaville Hotel, backed by a $113 million loan from Peachtree Group.
Savannah — citywideMilestone
The site plan for the Reuben Clark apartments went before the planning board.
Liberty CountyTransaction
A treatment plant serving industrial growth in Liberty County drew more than 200 people to a meeting, and the bill is still unsettled.
Drayton Street and White Bluff RoadZoning
Requests on Abercorn Street, East 40th Street and White Bluff Road would each let businesses open on a residential block.
Transaction
The hotel was built over a public route to River Street in 1981. A sale is the first opening in decades to reopen that argument.
downtownMilestone
New panels around the redevelopment site trace what stood on the ground before it.
Milestone
Environmental groups built a tool showing where the region's warehouses are, and tie the growth to the port.
Savannah HighlandsMilestone
Manor Park Ventures and Brook Farm Group broke ground on 675 Morgan, a 336-unit apartment community on the only multifamily-zoned parcel inside the Savannah Highlands master-planned community.
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The Savannah Brief
Everything above, filtered to the week’s most consequential changes, every Tuesday. Free, and every item still links to its documents.
