Waterfront dining coming to River Street | NAI Savannah new Retail Listing

By Adam Van Brimmer (savannahnow.com Savannah Morning News)

Traci O’Donaghue pauses mid-sentence as the hulking freighter slips by the River Street MarketPlace on its way to the Georgia Ports Authority terminal.

“Look at that,” O’Donaghue says after a moment. “I’m from Savannah and seen ships go up the river for decades. But I’m still in awe every time I see a ship go by. Imagine watching one go by from a table right here.”

Site Aerial courtesy of RPD

Come St. Patrick’s Day 2012, O’Donaghue hopes to be doing just that. She and business partner Kenneth Raisch plan to develop the riverfront property just east of the open-air marketplace into a retail and restaurant complex. The site’s current occupant, Moran Towing, will move its offices and tugboats across the river to Hutchinson Island when its lease expires next spring.

O’Donaghue’s group, RPD, will begin redeveloping the site the day Moran moves out. Plans call for a 26,000-square-foot complex of two-story buildings that will link the River Street MarketPlace, which RPD developed and opened in 2003, with Morrell Park.

Artist Conceptual Drawing -courtesy of RPD

O’Donaghue and her leasing agents, NAI Savannah’s Rex Benton and Graham Sadler, see the complex as the gateway to opening up the east end of River Street. The Moran complex sits across from the most easterly storefront building on River Street — the building houses the Olde Harbour Inn as well as small retail shops — and marks the unofficial commercial end of the street.

The only business located east of the site is the Savannah Marriott Riverfront, although the old Georgia Power Building is for sale and is likely to be re-developed for retail or hospitality use. And the riverfront commercial district will eventually extend further east with the Savannah River Landing development.

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Waterfront dining coming to River Street | savannahnow.com

Rex Benton is Savannah Commercial Real Estate agent with NAI Savannah, the commercial division of Mopper-Stapen, Realtors and is a contributing columnist for "BiS-Business In Savannah" weekly business publication. www.naisavannah.com 912.358-5600 Office Retail Industrial Investment Real Estate