Craft brewery headed to Springfield's Main Street

[thelakelander]

Now that Murray Hill's Edgewood Avenue has been discovered, it seems like redevelopment interest has picked up along Springfield's Main Street. Hyperion Brewing Company should be a nice addition to a stretch of Main, between 9th and 6th Streets, where quite a few projects are currently underway:

Hyperion Brewing Company Coming To Springfield

[FlaBoy]

Awesome!

[Tacachale]

I've had their beer before and they're really good. This will be an awesome addition to the local beer scene, and Springfield.

[ProjectMaximus]

We tried to find them a space on Edgewood but for their longterm needs this seemed to be the best solution for them. They still need help to rezone so please support them in their efforts if you can.

[thelakelander]

Our zoning code is pretty outdated. They aren't the only potential business that will need help in rezoning. IMO, we should seriously consider overhauling Jax's outdated zoning code to make it more compatible with the 21st century.

[UNFurbanist]

We should really look at what Detroit is doing with lean codes and pink zones!
http://fortune.com/2014/01/30/the-pink-zone-why-detroit-is-the-new-brooklyn/

[JaxJersey-licious]

So with this news the urban core will soon have compass-like craft beer coverage with breweries East, South, West, Northwest, and now due North of downtown including DT itself. Great news and I wish them the best.

On a side note, with all the new developments like this and renewed interest of Springfield, wouldn't the old Azars/Pic and Save on 7th St. make a GREAT location for one of them 'thar Food Halls the hipsters keep goin' on about? The community is way underserved as far as food options are concerned and the concept would be more that welcomed, I hope. Plus with plentiful parking, relatively easy expressway access, and enough indoor space for vendors and areas for demonstrations, classes, themed exhibits, and live music, this could be a great super-regional draw. They could work hand-in-hand with the new brewpub as well - who wouldn't want a nice charcuterie pairing with their hoppy IPA?

[thelakelander]

So with this news the urban core will soon have compass-like craft beer coverage with breweries East, South, West, Northwest, and now due North of downtown including DT itself. Great news and I wish them the best.

On a side note, with all the new developments like this and renewed interest of Springfield, wouldn't the old Azars/Pic and Save on 7th St. make a GREAT location for one of them 'thar Food Halls the hipsters keep goin' on about? The community is way underserved as far as food options are concerned and the concept would be more that welcomed, I hope. Plus with plentiful parking, relatively easy expressway access, and enough indoor space for vendors and areas for demonstrations, classes, themed exhibits, and live music, this could be a great super-regional draw. They could work hand-in-hand with the new brewpub as well - who wouldn't want a nice charcuterie pairing with their hoppy IPA?

It would but it doesn't have to be straight hipster.  I don't know how the financials would work but that building screams "public market" too me. However, more Baltimore's Lexington Market than DC's Union Market.

[JaxUnicorn]

The battle to allow this brewery to set up shop in Springfield is not yet over.  Although the re-zoning passed the LUZ committee, when it got to full Council on 09/27/16, it was referred back to LUZ.  Someone notified council not all churches within the 1500 foot radius were notified, so back it goes.  This means the neighborhood still has some fighting to do in order to get this passed again.

Next LUZ public hearing on the matter (2016-476):  Tuesday, 10/18, 5:30. 

Last time the churches brought nay-sayers in via bus. Those of us who support this change need to be there and speak to show our support.

[chris farley]

On the 1600 block of Boulevard stands a house that ca 1916-19 was the home of Victor Moore (look him up).  He started as a silent movie actor in 1916  but, went on to greater things.  "He appeared in hundreds of motion pictures and gained his greatest Broadway acclaim for his portrayal of Vice President Alexander Throttlebottom in the prize winning musical - Of thee I Sing".  He appeared with Fred Astair in the 1936 film - "Swing Time", also Mae West costarred with Moore in - "The Heat's On" - in 1943".  When in Jacksonville he was Executive Director of Klever Pictures Inc., one of many movie companies found in Jacksonville at that time.  Another "Boulevard" claims him now, he has a Star on the south side of the 6800 block of Hollywood Boulevard, the Walk of Fame.
That star could have/should have been on our Boulevard!
Sadly we lost a thriving movie industry due in part (maybe mostly) to the same sort of opposition that now faces the Craft Breweries for Main Street, Springfield.  This must not happen.

[RattlerGator]

Chris, come on. There was no way in this world Jacksonville could have hoped to keep the movie industry here even if the community was 100% behind it as a civic duty.

Los Angeles offered far, far too many advantages. This type of comment is akin to the claims some on here make about Jax being the Harlem of the South way back in the day. Such has never, ever been the case. We had the movie industry for a brief period, then an indisputably better location opened up. It really is that simple. There's certainly enough to complain about locally without this sort erroneous claim.

[thelakelander]

Rattler.....Jax was never a Harlem of the South. It's more accurate to say that Harlem is the LaVilla of the North. The Harlem Renaissance would not have happened without the Great Migration fueling Harlem with residents, music and cultural activity that was already taking place in urbanized African-American districts across the South like LaVilla, Overtown, Sweet Auburn, Central Park, Storyville, etc.

[chris farley]

Just a point - below is an article published in the FTU Jan. 27 1999 -  it was actually about the Zoo a Millennium Moment - I believe shows just what potential Jacksonville had. 
Quote
In January 1916 the city zoo in Springfield Park consisted of two deer, two wildcats, two coyotes, one black bear, five monkeys, five silver foxes, a whole lot of rabbits and some Guinea hens, cranes and squirrels.
Park superintendent Sidney G. Smith had just returned from Atlanta. There he purchased two zebras, a llama and a buffalo and began negotiations for a lion. Smith returned from Atlanta at the same time W. Eugene Moore, veteran director of the Thanhouser studio, arrived in Jacksonville to begin making movies in Springfield.  Moore told the press many Los Angeles movie companies would follow him to Jacksonville, because Jacksonville flat out beat Los Angeles and the North for the making of movies.
It was the light, he said. Jacksonville had good light. Not too dark, not too bright. The movies and all their accouterment - casts of thousands, on heel and hoof - would come to Jacksonville because of the light. And the light went on for park superintendent Smith.
''I understand several of the motion picture companies departing from Los Angeles have a number of wild animals that they use in pictures,'' Smith told The Florida Times-Union.
''I would be only too glad to be entrusted with their keep in the Springfield Park zoo . . . All that I would ask in return would be the privilege of keeping them in display cages. In this way I believe the city would secure a lot of valuable animals for the city and aid the motion picture companies at the same time.''
End Quote

I do believe Jacksonville could have retained the movies - but there were many complaints.
Just a thought.
The point is that if the breweries are turned down for a spot in Springfield - they will not go out of business - they will go elsewhere.  I believe like the movie industry.

[RattlerGator]

It is embarrassing, really, the way some people casually write as if no one else has travel experience or research experience or lived and interacted with people who have the same. It diminishes this board. Ennis, you certainly know better. Stephen, I'm not so sure. At the time of the Great Migration are y'all unaware that Florida was *the* smallest Southern state? That *we* were a great beneficiary of the Great Migration, too? It wasn't simply a migration to the north, you know? People weren't LEAVING Florida in that era, people were MOVING TO Florida from all over the South (Jacksonville black population growth 1900=16,250; 1910=29,300; 1920=41,520. The Great Migration? Get real.

1930 Population of African Americans in a range of Southern Cities

Atlanta: 90,100
Baltimore: 142,100
Birmingham: 99,000
Dallas-Fort Worth: 61,000
D.C.: 132,000
Houston: 63,350
Jacksonville: 48,000
Louisville: 47,400
Memphis: 96,600
Nashville: 42,850
New Orleans: 129,700
Norfolk: 44,000
Richmond: 53,000
Savannah: 39,000
Tampa: 21,200

Every city listed above with a population of 90,000 or more had entertainment districts that absolutely dwarfed LaVilla. Our state's particular contributions to Harlem in that period (let alone the City of Jacksonville) pales in comparison to other more populated Southern states and nations from the West Indies.

If there was any self-awareness at all on this point, y'all would cease immediately with that foolishness. It is just that idiotic. Every Southern city of any size in that era can claim what you claim for Jacksonville. We have a great history, no doubt, and a unique history at that. But the Harlem of the South? Crazy talk. And Harlem the LaVilla of the North?

Damn.

Honestly, put down the boosterism pipe and sober up.

[thelakelander]

^LOL Rattler. That's a lot of bold talking to not know your own history. Are you sure you spent time at FAMU?  They make their incoming students take a course on black history and this stuff would be considered the basics. I'm also sure, like me, you have family members that migrated from the south to the north during this era.


An African-American family leaves Florida for the North during the Great Depression. (MPI/Getty Images)

16,000 African-Americans left Jacksonville between 1916 and 1917 as a part of the first Great Migration. Many of which, ended up being key players in the Harlem Renaissance. Well known names like James Weldon Johnson, John Rosamond Johnson, A. Philip Randolph, Ma Rainey, Zora Neale Hurston, Frankie Manning, etc. all got the hell out of here during the first wave of the Great Migration.

You'll also note in my post, I did not isolated LaVilla. Harlem, like Detroit, Chicago, Buffalo and a host of other industrialized Northeast and Midwest cities benefited from blacks moving from the south for better economic opportunity around World War I.

Rattler.....Jax was never a Harlem of the South. It's more accurate to say that Harlem is the LaVilla of the North. The Harlem Renaissance would not have happened without the Great Migration fueling Harlem with residents, music and cultural activity that was already taking place in urbanized African-American districts across the South like LaVilla, Overtown, Sweet Auburn, Central Park, Storyville, etc.

Here's a little black history about the Great Migration for you: http://www.blackpast.org/aah/great-migration-1915-1960

Merely by leaving, African-Americans would get to participate in democracy and, by their presence, force the North to pay attention to the injustices in the South and the increasingly organized fight against those injustices. By leaving, they would change the course of their lives and those of their children. They would become Richard Wright the novelist instead of Richard Wright the sharecropper. They would become John Coltrane, jazz musician instead of tailor; Bill Russell, NBA pioneer instead of paper mill worker; Zora Neale Hurston, beloved folklorist instead of maidservant. The children of the Great Migration would reshape professions that, had their families not left, may never have been open to them, from sports and music to literature and art: Miles Davis, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, August Wilson, Jacob Lawrence, Diana Ross, Tupac Shakur, Prince, Michael Jackson, Shonda Rhimes, Venus and Serena Williams and countless others. The people who migrated would become the forebears of most African-Americans born in the North and West.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/long-lasting-legacy-great-migration-180960118/?no-ist

As for Harlem, before the Great Migration, it was around 10% black. By 1930, it had become 70% black. Even Harlem's own wiki page relies on quotes mentioning the Great Migration's impact on the community culturally:

The Democratic whites denied African Americans their exercise of civil and political rights by terrorizing black communities with lynch mobs and other forms of vigilante violence as well as by instituting a convict labor system that forced many thousands of African Americans back into unpaid labor in mines, on plantations, and on public works projects such as roads and levees. Convict laborers were typically subject to brutal forms of corporal punishment, overwork, and disease from unsanitary conditions. Death rates were extraordinarily high. While a small number of blacks were able to acquire land shortly after the Civil War, most were exploited as sharecroppers. As life in the South became increasingly difficult, African Americans began to migrate north in great numbers.

Most of the African-American literary movement arose from a generation that had memories of the gains and losses of Reconstruction after the Civil War. Sometimes their parents or grandparents had been slaves. Their ancestors had sometimes benefited by paternal investment in cultural capital, including better-than-average education. Many in the Harlem Renaissance were part of the early 20th century Great Migration out of the South into the Negro neighborhoods of the North and Midwest. African Americans sought a better standard of living and relief from the institutionalized racism in the South. Others were people of African descent from racially stratified communities in the Caribbean who came to the United States hoping for a better life. Uniting most of them was their convergence in Harlem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Renaissance