SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - There is a community event on Saturday, Feb. 5, at the new Enmarket Arena in Savannah.

It marks the multi-million dollar facility’s official opening.

Before the first concert on Sunday, the city wanted to give residents the chance to tour and explore the arena first.

The event is from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. and it’s free. It’s an experience for the whole family with live music, games, tours of the arena and more.

With construction still underway on the parking lots, there will be a temporary parking plan in place for Saturday. If you are attending, parking is free, and you won’t have to reserve a spot.

Guests are allowed to park in lots B, G or F. It’s important to know that there will not be any shuttles running for this event, but there are 1,600 spaces available.

This will not be the case starting Sunday.

“You need to have that taken care of prior to the event itself. There’s no showing up to the arena and paying $15. You have to make that reservation ahead of time,” said Bret Bell, City of Savannah Chief Operating Officer.

That starts on Sunday, with the Riley Greene concert that will be the venue’s first show. For concerts like that, parking spaces on site will have to be reserved ahead of time. The plan the City recommends most people use is parking at the 800 space Liberty Garage and taking the shuttle from the Civic Center to the arena.

“If you show up on Saturday, we’ll have 1,600 spaces available, including immediately adjacent to the arena. On Saturday, the open house, it’s free parking the entire day. A customer going to Riley Green, I’m going to take the shuttle from downtown. Another option, increasingly popular, is taking Uber, Lyft, or taxi,” City of Savannah Chief Operating Officer Bret Bell said.

They say that shuttle will start an hour and half before events and won’t stop until the last person has been brought back to the civic center after the event ends. Again, that shuttle information is for Sunday and it’s not running Saturday.

For more information on parking from the arena’s website, please click here.

Arena neighbors

WTOC spoke with a man who lives as close as possible to this arena, with it right out his front door.

“Best view in the house! I can sit on my porch and look through the window and see the arena inside. They got a big ole screen in there I can see the show right through the window,” said Samuel Neson Jr. who lives across from the Enmarket Arena.

He might be the lone person who can say that, because he says he doesn’t have any neighbors left.

“I’m the only one in this block, everyone else moved out. They’re gone and the person in the back gone so I’m the only one here.”

“A couple hours before the show we’re going to drop barricades for every residential street saying residential parking only. We’ve talked with residents, given them letters, a phone number to call if people park in space they shouldn’t be parked at. We’ll be enforcing the residential areas on event days,” said Bell.

“Enmarket Arena in front of my door. As of now everything is beautiful, it’s going fine. I don’t have problems with no parking because it hasn’t started yet,” Neson Jr. said.

He says he’s been assured nobody will be parking on his street after the arena opens.

“This side of the street will be closed, they got to dig it out but they going to use that side but this side is going to be closed for about two months.”

The inside of Enmarket Arena is just hours away from being revealed to Savannahians, and while it’s all shiny and finished, city leaders have been telling us the infrastructure around it has a way to go. They don’t want anybody to be shocked seeing this when coming to see a show and say this is why all the information about parking is specifically important.

While crews were still working Friday, Saturday is Community Day and the first test for the city’s plan. They say there will be more than 1500 spaces available for parking Saturday, but for ticketed events after that it will be a different story.

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