SAVANNAH — The delay-plagued Savannah Convention Center expansion is near completion, and the adjoining hotel that’s needed to accommodate larger conferences finally has a target opening date.
Together the state-backed projects are meant to turn the 25-year-old exhibition hall popular with regional organizations into a draw for national groups. The expanded facility will be the 71st-largest convention center in the United States.
Gov. Brian Kemp championed the $276 million expansion, but funding disputes between the convention center contractor and the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission slowed construction. Originally slated to open in fall 2023, the hall addition is set to host its first event, a 300-team youth volleyball tournament, on Feb. 15. Convention center managers have a temporary certificate of occupancy for the addition with a “punch list” of small issues to fix ahead of opening.
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution
As for the hotel, a 400-room Signia by Hilton Savannah is to open in March 2028 on a parcel next to the convention center. The hotel’s initial design, including guest room layouts, is nearing completion, and Atlanta-developer Songy Highroads showed off renderings of the hotel Wednesday during a Savannah-Georgia Convention Center Authority board meeting.
The plans impressed the hall’s chief business marketers, Visit Savannah’s Joe Marinelli and the Savannah Convention Center’s Angela Daniels.
“Our customers and prospects are going to love this when we can go to market with it,” said Marinelli, chief executive of the convention and visitors bureau, upon seeing the renderings and layouts during an earlier meeting.
Officials have not yet set a groundbreaking date for the hotel. With predevelopment plans nearly finalized, the next step is a bond sale to finance construction. According to an official with the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, the state entity that owns the convention center, the $300 million in bonds should be available in June.
One bond detail yet to be worked out is the legality of the convention center authority guaranteeing one tranche of those securities. The authority is funded in part by hotel-motel tax revenues, and current tax law does not include language that would allow those funds to be used to back a convention center hotel. Authority Chairman Mark Smith said state lawmakers would take up the matter once the 2025 legislative session opens in January.
“It’ll get done,” Smith said. “It won’t be controversial.”
The progress on the hotel comes as a relief to members of the convention center authority. Attempts to build a second convention center hotel — the first is a 403-room Westin opened in 1999 that sits east of the exhibition hall and is the only hotel within walking distance — have been ongoing since 2010. The convention center sits across the Savannah River from the historic downtown, and convention attendees not staying at the Westin must access the exhibition hall by car, bus or ferry.
Three previous hotel development contracts were abandoned due to financing concerns, including one that fell through in June 2023. That latest failure, along with data from Visit Savannah citing lost business due to a lack of hotel room availability near the exhibition hall, prompted the Georgia World Congress Center Authority to take on the project in late 2023.
The authority adopted the same model used to build the Signia by Hilton Atlanta, the 1,000-room glass skyscraper next to the Georgia World Congress Center and Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The authority partnered with Hilton as well as an investment bank on the hotel, which opened in January 2024.
Credit: Georgia-Savannah Convention Center Authority
Credit: Georgia-Savannah Convention Center Authority
Construction of the Savannah hotel is considered vital to the expanded convention center’s success. The larger hall is being marketed to groups that require 2,000-plus hotel rooms, and tourism officials currently must work with 15 or more hotels to find that many rooms. In a city where hotel occupancy rates regularly surpass 90% — particularly in tourism-rich downtown — securing room blocks for conventions is a challenge.
Operators of Savannah’s larger downtown hotels acknowledge the need for the Signia by Hilton Savannah even though the convention center hotel will compete with their properties for business. The convention center authority, which includes a Savannah hotel operator, meets regularly with lodging members to update them on the progress toward the convention center hotel’s construction.
“The local lodging community agrees with the importance of the project for our destination and await the final terms before offering support for this specific potential development,” said Michael Owens, who heads the Tourism Leadership Council, a hospitality industry trade group.
Demand is high for the expanded convention center. Already 146 events have been booked in the space through the end of the decade, according to Savannah Convention Center General Manager Kelvin Moore.
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