Two groups look to tap Kings Road buying power with more retail

[thelakelander]

Larry Wilson grew up near Kings Road and got his first haircut at Bracy's Barbershop, located in a storefront on the edge of the Edward Waters College campus.

He then bought the business, keeping the name of its founding owner, and for the last 20 years, he has seen the changes in the neighborhoods flanking Kings Road.

So when he recently walked into a community meeting to hear about a plan to bring more businesses to the Kings Road corridor, he went with a mix of optimism tempered by skepticism that anything meaningful would happen.

"By the end of the meeting," he said, "I walked away expecting change."

The spark for that expectation is a new effort spearheaded by two nonprofit organizations — HabiJax and Local Initiatives Support Corp. — in tandem with Edward Waters College, the city of Jacksonville and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority.

Local Initiatives Support Corp., known as LISC for short, did a market analysis of whether the part of town split by Kings Road could support more everyday retail.

LISC has done about 80 of those studies nationwide, but the Kings Road analysis was only the second time it's done one in Jacksonville. Springfield, located north of downtown, was the first neighborhood.

Full article: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2014-12-28/story/two-groups-look-tap-kings-road-buying-power-more-retail

[Ocklawaha]

Fantastic news, I damn near cried when I saw they had torn down 'Hermans' old store and cafe on the SW side of the NS yard off of Kings. The place was a historic jewel right down to the Merita Bread push plate on the squeaky screen door! Best burgers in the history of mankind. Imagine a REAL streetcar line from EWC to FSCJ and on to both the stadium and Riverside! Wow.

[Ocklawaha]

Ennis it belonged to the old insurance agency there (forgot the name) just east of Wooten Fiber Company. I lived in a little shotgun rental that I rehabbed for the 90 year old landlord modernizing the bathroom, and fixing everything broken... HA! The only thing I never fixed was a hive of honeybees that nested in the wall off of the kitchen. They couldn't get in and never attacked anyone, but you could sit at the table and hear them buzzing.