by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Springfield developer Craig Van Horn said he’ll start construction shortly after the Super Bowl on an 80,000 square-foot development sitting on three corners of the intersection at Eighth and Pearl streets.
Van Horn’s company, Symbiosis Investments, LLC, has been one of the neighborhood’s primary investors, renovating residential properties and turning an abandoned tire store on Ninth and Main streets into Henrietta’s Restaurant. Van Horn said Symbiosis would pay about $8 million to develop the northwest, northeast and southeast corners into retail and residences. He said Symbiosis had already raised the capital and expected to start construction in early 2005. Construction should last about a year.
Van Horn said he won’t seek City incentives so he doesn’t need the approval of the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission or the City Council. The Design and Review Committee has approved the project and Van Horn said he expects to have the project permitted by late 2004.
Symbiosis has been waiting for City infrastructure work on Eighth Street before pulling the trigger on construction. Van Horn said drainage and utility improvements and road resurfacing, all paid for by the Better Jacksonville Plan, would encourage investment in the area as retailers build to meet demand created by a wave of residential development.
“The residential side of the market has been doing great,” said Van Horn. “Now you need restaurants and coffee houses to service the people moving in. It kind of goes in a step-by-step pattern.”
Van Horn said he was talking to several interested tenants, but doesn’t know yet who will move in.
He said retail investors would be encouraged by the City money being spent to improve the area. Van Horn is one of the first non-residential builders in Springfield since the City Council approved a downtown zoning overlay designed to streamline downtown’s small business development. He said others would follow.
“Developers wait for infrastructure, you can’t build without it,” said Van Horn. “When the City took the lead and got into the infrastructure on Eighth Street, it took away any uncertainty about the market.”
The City should finish work on the street when it buries electrical lines later this year. Van Horn credited the City for getting the work done before the Super Bowl. That allowed him to build next year instead of 2006 or 2007, he said.
Van Horn said Eighth Street development should carry a lesson to City planners when they consider how to fund similar improvements on Main Street. That project isn’t funded by the Better Jacksonville Plan and the City is waiting for federal funds to complete work from 5th Street to 12th Street.
Federal budget squabbles threaten to delay federal money until 2006. Until the work is complete, Van Horn said development above 4th Street would stall.
“We need them to fund Main Street,” said Van Horn. “People aren’t going to build in an area if they think the roads are going to be torn up for a year in front of their property.”