Creating a Cohesive Image in Springfield. '05

[stephendare]

Residential sales are taking off, businesses are moving in, and developers are champing at the bit -- Springfield is ready for growth. But will it come?

By ALISON TRINIDAD, The Times-Union

Christy Frazier, who closed The Art Bar this year after five years in Riverside, has planted roots at the gates of Springfield with The Pearl.


After searching for a year, she bought the night club at the corner of First and Main streets in April, built a tree-lined bar inside and opened in August. Her lease in Riverside was up and she had wanted to buy somewhere close to her Avondale home. Only a few miles north, Springfield was the right fit, she said.

"It was time," Frazier said. "I'm here to stay."

And Frazier is anxious to see more businesses -- particularly of the nightlife variety -- migrate to Springfield, a 500-acre historic district about one mile north of downtown Jacksonville. Like downtown, there are few restaurants, clubs or entertainment venues open late in Springfield. Then again, there are few like businesses in Springfield period.

It might take a fewyears, but real estate experts are confident those businesses will come: commercial property in the area still is relatively cheap and the people living there need basic service providers like dry cleaners, restaurants and grocery stores.

Trying to create a cohesive image

Long perceived by Jacksonville residents as a haven for crime and poverty, Springfield has slowly begun to revive itself. Along the neighborhood's grid of streets, renovated mansions and newly constructed Craftsman-style homes face vacant lots and abandoned bungalows. Freshly painted porches, monitored by security cameras and high-tech alarm systems, camouflage the pockets of poverty just around the corner.

Residential development in Springfield has taken off in the last few years, mainly through the investment of out-of-state developers. Rising property values attest to that success: The median residential sales price in the historic district year to date was $189,000, up from $128,000 the same time last year, real estate agent Reggie Fountain said. Developers say the area has reached a critical mass, and now that road improvements along Eighth and Main streets are progressing, they are confident business will trickle back.

Michael Bryant, president of the Springfield Business Association, said business will go where people are. The association, similar to a neighborhood chamber of commerce, is trying to create a cohesive image for the Springfield business community, partly through cooperative advertising among neighborhood merchants.

"There's a correlation between improvements in the residential community and improvements in the business community -- you can't have one without the other," Bryant said. "What's moved rapidly is in the residential market, which has changed dramatically over the last three or four years. It doesn't translate to an immediate change in the commercial market, but it sets the stage."

And developers are ready to take their cue.

Construction of a $20 million retail and residential project at Eighth and Pearl streets is slated to start in January, and soon after that, an $11 million development at Third and Main streets called The Lofts on Main is expected to break ground. The two projects are expected to add 168,000 square feet of retail and office space.

At Eighth and Pearl, being developed by Springfield-based Symbiosis Investments, plans include rooftop gardens where courtyard bars and restaurants sit above two- and three-story buildings. Symbiosis, which transformed an abandoned tire store into Springfield's trendy Henrietta's restaurant three years ago, is counting on both Springfield residents and employees at nearby Shands Jacksonville hospital to frequent the proposed stores.

Cesery Cos., a San Marco-based developer, plans to build 44 condominiums at The Lofts on Main, some of which would be above shops and offices.

Meeks, Ross, Paulk & Associates, a full-service accounting firm on the Southbank, is about to move into larger, renovated offices on Laura Street in December. Principal Jack Meeks, vice president of the Springfield Preservation & Revitalization Council, said the idea of buying office space in a neighborhood close to downtown appealed to him. It's also convenient that his house is only four blocks away.

John Snyder and his wife, Rose, also plan to live close to where they work. The couple, who moved to Springfield in June, started a dry cleaning pick-up service called Springfield Cleaners about two months ago. They plan to open a storefront at Eighth and Pearl when it opens next fall.

"There really aren't many services in Springfield and there are no dry cleaners," John Snyder said. "It was needed. ... [Delivery] was the most economical way to get started."

Snyder, 60, formerly an electrical engineer, bought his house from SRG Homes & Neighborhoods, a new construction developer that owns enough land to build another 150 homes and condominiums in Springfield. SRG homes range in price from $279,000 to the mid-$500,000s.

He said the community is worth it.

"I never thought I'd live in the inner city ... [but] there's a real sense of community here. People here seem to want to support businesses that are here or that want to start," Snyder said.

Can Main Street compete?

Stephen Dare, who moved his dinner theater from Main Street to Hemming Plaza downtown, agreed with Snyder. But Dare said it's not enough -- there are too few people in Springfield to sustain a business there. He said there was cheaper rent, better quality facilities and more foot traffic downtown. Dare is a Springfield resident who said he loves the neighborhood, but is waiting until retail really picks up before bringing his business back there.

Developer Paul Shockey, who helped bring The Burrito Gallery downtown, has lived in Springfield for eight years. He plans to convert his 15 loft apartments at 1951 Market St., a former elementary school, into condominiums next year.

He said business on Main Street, two blocks west, is slow to pick up because many property owners are asking higher rents than the market can bear.

"I'm a businessman and I'm all about making a dollar," Shockey said. "But some of the owners on Main Street have these unrealistic expectations. I think it's halting development."

On top of that, construction on Main Street from Fourth to 12th streets is scheduled to start in January.

"Historically, when you tear up a road like that, it impacts the businesses that are there," Snyder said. "In the long run it will help you. In the short run, I think it's going to hurt."

"As a new business owner or as an investor, it would be hard to talk me into moving in with the construction," Shockey said.

'A market in transition'

That upheaval and new construction makes it difficult for large commercial property management companies to categorize the Springfield market.

Lease rates for unrenovated property on the outskirts of the historic district run as cheap as $7 to $12 a square foot, according to C.B. Richard Ellis agent Bruce Jackson, who canvassed property near Shands Jacksonville. He said sales prices range from $25 to $40 per square foot, which is still less than other commercial property in the city's core.

Chuck White, CEO of real estate firm Commercial Jacksonville/Cushman & Wakefield, said smaller agencies will take control of the commercial real estate market in Springfield because there is less office space. He estimates rates to stabilize within the next three years, once projects like Eighth and Pearl come online.

"It's a tough market because it's in transition," White said.

Business plans, market rates and profit are terms with which entrepreneurs like Frazier, Snyder and Shockey are familiar. But until the Springfield market steadies, they're prepared to ride it out.

If only a grocery store would move in soon, they said.

"The first one who does that, they win the lottery," Shockey said.

[walter]

I've been using Springfield Cleaners since they started and I have to say that John is great.  His business is doing well too and for me its an example of a neighborhood business that does a good job and one that I'm happy to patronize.  To come to my house, pick up my laundry and then drop it off, nice.  Even though the storefront never materialized, his business model works and I'm happy to have them here.