Team Recovery opens a thrift store in Springfield.

[sheclown]

Thanks Stephen!   

[sheclown]

Team Recovery Thrift Store is donating a $20.00 gift certificate to Kenneth's MAKE IT HAPPEN! event to be presented at the end of the day.   Kenneth can either purchase items for himself or for his home.

We'd like to challenge other businesses in Springfield to do the same. 

Let's show this family some L O V E !!

Post it if you'll do it.

[sheclown]

The thrift store, (and me), was on TV tonight.  Whoo Whoot!

[iloveionia]

Did you have warning? Or did they just show up?

[sheclown]

First Coast News just showed up.  I saw this guy, handsome and well dressed, walking down the sidewalk holding a camera on a tripod.  I thought to myself  "my, the pawn shop clientele are really looking up."

He came into the store and asked me some questions about Main Street, shook his head as he looked across the street and said "this place has so much potential."  I really think he wants to understand, what we all want to understand...why?

Then he whipped out his camera.  I happened to be ironing at the time, so he took some film of me ironing (now, how exciting is that!) and asked me a few questions.  

Bottom line is that business is basically worse this year than last, even with Main Street finished.  In our block, alone, we have one less business than we did last year.  

[sheclown]

Many of us (some of us with business experience in Springfield) have long thought that SPAR ought to get out of the Main Street Revitalization biz and hand that over to a CDC that knows what it is doing perhaps one like Metro North.

I'd like to see a Main Street revitalization project run from river to river.  Only then will Main Street stand a chance.

[sheclown]

Losing the bus stop on the corner of 7th and Main didn't help anything either.

A Main Street revitalization project needs to fight to keep the bus stops on Main Street (not lobby to get them removed). 

[iloveionia]

Main Street has SOOOOOOOOO much potential.  No offense to the businesses out there, but it is so desolate.  If I may boldly say we have saved the houses through persistence and hard work in these last months, Main Street MUST be next.  Someone/some group HAS to take it back.  We need little restaurants, eateries, and shops. 

And yup, From the St. John's to the Trout River.  Bring it. 

[sheclown]

What are you doing next summer? 

[iloveionia]

Don't tempt me.
Remember the moon is easy to reach.

[Debbie Thompson]

Don't tempt me.
Remember the moon is easy to reach.

It certainly does seem reachable for you, darlin'  :-)  We are all awed by your super powers.  Why not?

[ChriswUfGator]

The two things are pretty much hand in hand, nverenuff.

In springfield there is no proof of commercial viability, but there is proof that you can lose your ass and all your savings on main street.

Anyone in their right mind deciding to open up a shop can see that.

Can you imagine what the person who is deciding whether or not to open a shop thinks when they see this kind of spiteful neighborhood activity?

"Next Please!"

And heaven help them if they go ask the existing shops that are there now (the only ones left are the pawn shops) about the neighborhood.

Maybe they'll ask Three Layers or AAA Auto or Shanty or... well you get the idea. Again, I always hope for the intelligence in others and hope that any merchant would get their info from something other than a site such as this with a whopping maybe 50 - and I think that's damn generous - residents of Springfield. There are hundreds upon hundreds of residents who support local business and do not post here. Didn't you always mention how supportive the residents were of Boomtown - aside from SPAR?

If someone honestly took what's said on here as their one and only decision maker then they probably wouldn't be bright enough to keep the business going anyway. Just my elitist opinion about brain usage.

nvrenuf not nvrenuff (contrary to the name, 1 f is enough) 

Well, speaking personally, these are my two favorite quotes from this thread. For a couple of reasons.

#1: SPAR initially supported, then ultimately boycotted Shantytown and 3 Layers, when the owners didn't tow the nazi party line about who and what should be "allowed" in the neighborhood. And;

#2: MetroJacksonville wound up being completely correct about SPAR and Louise DeSpain. Thankfully, the public attention that was reflected on SPAR's activities surrounding the back-room business deals, bogus code-enforcement complaint call-in campaigns, SPAR's demolitions for "social reasons" (COJ's Head of Building/Planning Dept.'s words not mine), and SPAR's general shadiness, not only demonstrated that far more than 50 people read MetroJacksonville, but the public attention (thankfully) also wound up ushering in a new era in Springfield and bringing about Louise DeSpain's resignation.

And of course, I would be remiss not to mention that, in 20-20 hindsight, posters/documents posted on MetroJacksonville actually proved that SPAR itself had <50 members at the time those statements were made, notwithstanding their claims to COJ to represent the entire neighborhood.

Comical.

i·ro·ny1    /ˈaɪrəni, ˈaɪər-/  Show Spelled
[ahy-ruh-nee, ahy-er-]  Show IPA

â€"noun, plural -nies. 
1. the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning