Boomtown, Main Street and the Downtown Springfield Axis

[stephendare]

Boomtown at 9th and Main.

What a long strange trip its been.

After all of the gallivanting nonsense surrounding our move from downtown, the last place that I would expect to have opened Boomtown would have been with Craig Van Horne, in the very building that served as our most aggressive competitor.

Its been interesting coming back to Springfield, which has managed to retain its nutty, eclectic propensity for both comedy and drama, but has really began to evolve into a neighborhood, complete with regulars, wild block parties, and a developing cast of characters who will no doubt be gossipped about 60 years from now.

After Boomtown left, Main Street pretty much dried up and died.

The Pearl opened, and does gangbuster business, but without any residual effect on the rest of the strip....I suspect because its not deep enough into the neighborhood.

Shantytown Pub also is new, or at least opened since we were here last.   Ian and Marianne from The London Bridge opened it up, made it dog friendly (which was freaking brilliant, since big scary dog ownership is the one uniting tradition of life in springfield) and as a result hit a home run.  Its pretty much the neighborhood hangout for the surprisingly young and hip new majority of springfielders.

Because of the emnity which has existed betwixt the Craig Van Horne Empire and the House of Boomtown, It has certainly been with a little satisfaction and schadenfreude that we have witnessed the serial failures of SO MANY different operations inside the 9th and Main environs---which is a bit hypocritical since we have actually liked most of the people who opened up the different (now defunct) attempts-----Nosh, the Justice women, Crush, Carlos and Cherrise, and a few others who have run aground on the rocky shores of 9th and Main.

Anyways, I guess I felt it was time to set aside the puerile competition and emnity with Van Horne if Main Street is ever to become a vibrant district.

So I scheduled a meeting with him, which he attended at the exhortations of both Lee Harvey, the noted artist, and Kevin Gay, the noted philanthropist and we decided to start afresh, both with each other and in how we would approach the neighborhood.

Within a week, Boomtown tentatively began moving into the space occupied by the restaurant.
(to be continued----have to go make a pasta alfredo and a raspberry steak)

[thelakelander]

Well hopefully these events are a thing of the past.  We have an opportunity to bring Main back alive and the best way to make that happen is through clustering complementing businesses, allowing synergy to finally form.

[thelakelander]

So what's the next step?  What's needed to get these spaces rented?  Personally, I think the key to getting Main Street to take off is filling the retail spaces between 6th & 9th Streets.  If we can jump start the heart, growth will easily spread outward.

[second_pancake]

A bike shop and record store are operating part time on 6th and Main

Bikes like my kind of bikes, or bikes like motor bikes?  What kind of bikes to they sell...or are they a repair only? 

[second_pancake]

Ok, so they're all fixies?  I couldn't find any kind of website for them, but looked through the link you provided for the festival and it looks like a freakin blast! 

One of the best alleycat races I saw was on a YouTube video in NY during early winter. It was set to, Welcome to the Jungle, by GNR and was absolutely amazing

I didn't know there was a jax bike co-op either.  I feel so disconnected  

[thelakelander]

Lake, do we have any street maps of main street lying around?

Here you go.

Downtown/Springfield


Downtown/Springfield border up close


Main Street (between 9th & 5th Streets)

[02roadking]

Ok, so they're all fixies?  I couldn't find any kind of website for them, but looked through the link you provided for the festival and it looks like a freakin blast! 

One of the best alleycat races I saw was on a YouTube video in NY during early winter. It was set to, Welcome to the Jungle, by GNR and was absolutely amazing

I didn't know there was a jax bike co-op either.  I feel so disconnected  

Hey Pancakes, this is the blog for the store   http://deadtank.wordpress.com/  but no info on the bike shop except for the January 19th post. They also have what they call a Midnight Mass ride. Info is under weekly events on the right side.

[downtownparks]

Is the old Bakery up for re-lease? If Jim is paying his rent, I dont know if Mike can do anything with, or about that space until his lease is up.

[soxfan]

Steven, I would be very careful of any sublet with Huntress. I was talking with Mike not too long ago and he said that it was in Jim's lease agreement that he CANNOT sublet that space. He can bring in investors to help HIM run a business but NO SUBLETTING. I won't even pretend to know how all of this stuff works but that was what Mike told me.

[thelakelander]

That space aside, nearly the entire block of Main between 6th & 7th is also vacant.  Something visible in that stretch would be just as beneficial in pulling things together.

[downtownparks]

Last I heard, the owner was asking 800K for that building (down from 1.2 Mil). This was before the windows, so its probably back up to 1.2 Mil...

Anyway, They have been under considerable pressure from Code Enforcement, and may have put the windows in as a stop gap measure. I would be happily surprised to hear that they have any real plans.

[thelakelander]

I plan on going by the little building with the new windows installed later on today
see if i can find out what the story is with that.

What do people think about Jamba Juice?

Not much, I've never been in one.  However, there is a location at Baymeadows and Philips.  Are they interested in Springfield?

[downtownparks]

Thats not entirely correct. The Hogans Creek Project has never had funding. The program that is Hogans Creek falls under only gets about 50 million a year, nationwide, and projects that are already underway get preferential treatment.

The WRDA, the program which funds the aquatic renourishment program, and could change that 50million number, had not been reauthorized since 2000. In addition, a great chunk of the ACoE resources went to New Orleans after Katrina.

I believe that after the third Request, Corrine Brown was able to get 400K earmarked in the latest budget in order to get the project udner way. The first several years are all in planning, so dont expect to see anything happening before that. The Hogans Creek Greenway, however, which is unrelated and is fully funded throught the FDOT, should kick off construction sometime this year.

This is a write up from one of the many meetings from over a year ago that Doug V and I sat in on it talks about how the 206 program works.

The City of Jacksonville, project sponsor, working with the District Office of the Army Corps of Engineers, has requested from the U.S. House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Energy and Water Appropriations, $200,000 in FY 2007 funding under section 206 of the Water Resources Development Act of 1996.

         Section 206 is a Continuing Authorities Program (CAP) authority.  This program grants standing authority to the Corps, subject to certain spending limits ($25 million nationally, and $5 million for any single project) to study and build water resource projects.  A Preliminary Ecological Restoration Plan (PRP) for the Hogan’s Creek 206 project was completed in FY 2002 and established Federal interest in the project. Funding was allotted in the amount of $450,000 through FY2004 to initiate and continue the Ecosystem Restoration Report (ERR) which is the key decision document for the Corps.  Subsequently requests were made in FY 2005 and 2006 to earmark funding to continue the project by developing a more detailed decision making document and complete the ERR.  However, those requests were unsuccessful largely because Congress had to impose severe budgetary restrictions.  This decision making document, planned by the Corps and budgeted at $200,000 for FY 2007, is called the Environmental Restoration Report (ERR).  The ERR examines the whole feasibility of the ecological restoration project. It looks at various alternatives for restoring the Creek and the costs and benefits associated with those alternatives.  It asks for and considers what alternatives the Mayor and local citizens favor through public involvement and citizen outreach.  The Report will come to a conclusion in late FY 2007 selecting the alternative that is most technically feasible and most cost and restoration effective as viewed from the Federal standpoint.  If local authorities favor a different alternative, called the “locally preferred plan”, they have the option of selecting the “locally preferred plan” and paying any difference between the alternative picked by the Corps and the locally preferred plan. 

         Assuming the completed ERR report supports continued Federal interest and lays out the feasibility and need for the Creek*s ecological restoration, then in FY 2008 a request to fund  earmark $400,000 to develop detailed plans and specifications will must be made  by the Corp project sponsor to Congress.  At the end of that year detailed plans will be in place to seek earmarked construction funding for the restoration project by the project sponsor.  Currently the restoration project is estimated to cost around $5 million with 35% of those costs paid by the City sponsor.

            To gain the needed Congressional support, the Mayor has earmarked and expressed his support of this project with Congresswoman Corrine Brown’s office and has asked for her support in seeking priority earmarked funding within the FY2007 House Subcommittee on Energy and Water Appropriations Report.

[downtownparks]

BTW, while the Army Core plan will help, it is by no means a full plan. It only addresses the aquatic health of the creek, it does not address industrial contamination in the creek, passive or active contamination in the parks, amenities, or historical preservation/restoration.

It also does not address the petroleum contamination from the Park View Inn Site, which JEA recently confirmed has contaminated areas around the Laura St reservoir as well as the creek basin in the vicinity of Confederate Park.

[thelakelander]

they are interested in getting into the downtown market actually.

Jamba Juice is looking for another expansion store, but the downtown real estate prices are an issue, as well as the parking issues, which affects their daytime crowd.

Do you have a contact with them?  Main Street would seem like a viable market for them, if they don't want to deal with downtown's issues.  What needs to be done to get them in the urban core?

A truly revived Hogan's Creek would unite Springfield with the Sports and Bay Street Entertainment District, just as a two way, lit Laura Street Corridor would unite the neighborhood with the Landing and the Museum District.

In a grand scheme, I'd agree.  However, Hogans Creek is too large in length to spread our resources too thin (unless we're talking about cleaning it up).  Short of the contamination issue, the best thing to do would be to focus on one section of the creek/parks and load it up with a mix of uses and amenities in it and along its borders.  Right off the bat, to me that would be the Klutho, Confederate Park and the area between them.