MarketCity Market (Savannah, Georgia)
Company Profile

City Market (Savannah, Georgia)

City Market is a historic market complex in the Historic District of Savannah, Georgia. Originally centered on the site of today's Ellis Square from 1733, today it stretches west from Ellis Square to Franklin Square. Established in the 1700s with a wooden building, locals gathered here for their groceries and services. This building burned in the Great Savannah Fire of 1820 and was replaced the following year with a single-storey structure that wrapped around the square. "It was a wooden shed, about twenty-five feet wide," remembered historian Charles Seton Henry Hardee, who moved to Savannah in 1835. It had a shingle roof, supported by brick pillars. An uncovered section was used for the sale of live poultry and seafood. The covered area was mainly used for the sale of vegetables and dressed poultry. A brick building, the work of architects Augustus Schwaab and Martin Phillip Muller, was erected in 1876. They had submitted plans to the city six years earlier. The cost of the building's construction "vastly exceeded expectations" after excavations revealed weakened arches in the basement floor that required them to be replaced. It was an ornate structure with arches in the Romanesque style and large circular windows.

Ellis Square parking garage controversy
In 1954, the city signed a 50-year lease with the Savannah Merchants Cooperative Parking Association, allowing the association to raze the existing structure and construct a parking garage to serve the City Market retail project. "The demolition of City Market was a disaster. That was the worst thing Savannah ever did," said preservationist Cornelia Groves. The outer structure of this city market building influenced the design of the Kroger grocery store on Gwinnett Street and the Publix grocery store in the Twelve Oaks shopping center on Abercorn Street. When the garage's lease expired in 2004, the city began plans to restore Ellis Square. The old parking garage was demolished in 2006 to make way for a new public square (park) that features open spaces for public concerts, as well as an underground parking garage on Whitaker Street. The underground facility was completed and formally dedicated in January 2009. File:City Market parking garage Savannah.png|The Ellis Square parking garage around 2005. It was demolished in 2006 ==Timeline of market buildings==
Timeline of market buildings
• –1820 – a wooden building was erected; burned down in 1820 • 1821–1876 – a single-storey structure was erected which wrapped around the square's center • 1876–1954 – a brick structure was the third and final structure that existed; torn down by the city ==Buildings in City Market==
Buildings in City Market
Gallery
File:City Market, Savannah, by Wilson, J. N. (Jerome Nelson), 1827-1897.jpg|The City Market building that existed between 1876 and 1954 File:City Market interior.png|Interior of the market, circa 1945, File:Savannah, GA - Historic District - City Market - Belford's Restaurant (1).jpg|Belford's Restaurant in Franklin Square, 2008 File:Savannah Historic District (Savannah, Georgia) 3 20.JPG|The side of the building shows the faded paint from when it was the Belford Company Wholesale Grocers File:Robert McIntire Building.jpg|Robert McIntire Building, 221–227 West St. Julian Street in Ellis Square, 2021 File:Sorry Charlie's Oyster Bar, Barnard St, Savannah GA 20160705 1.jpg|Sorry Charlie's Oyster Bar, in Ellis Square, is one of City Market's many restaurants File:Kroger Gwinnett Street Savannah, GA (7967754626).jpg|The exterior design of the Kroger grocery store on Gwinnett Street in Savannah was influenced by the former City Market building, which had three gables on each of its façades ==References==
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