by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
The unique Five Points area in Riverside is no stranger to change. Since the 1920’s, its storefronts have been filled with every kind of business imaginable. From dress shops and bookstores to headshops and tattoo parlors, the historic Jacksonville neighborhood has seen its fair share new faces and new businesses.
Looming over the historic Five Points area is the old Riverside Theater building, which itself has seen and experienced many changes since it was built in 1927. While the building has been renovated several times and filled with numerous different occupants over the years, it has stood mostly vacant for the past decade. Besides a nightclub in the theater space and a few shops on the ground floor, most of the four story building was recently only used for storage or simply not used at all.
In August, however, a small group of investors bought the building and sought to return it to its historical significance and former grandeur.
The Five Points Theater Building, LLC, a group of investors led by Mike Shad, former owner of the local chain of automobile dealerships, has started to renovate it. The group, which also includes two of Shad’s sons, Jack and Bill, plans to convert the building into a mixed-use structure that will include office and retail space and several residential apartments.
The group is currently in the process of getting the building rezoned for the planned mixed-use purposes but both Mike and Jack Shad said they are not too worried about being denied for the new zoning.
“We don’t anticipate any problems with that,” Mike said. “This is what the city is trying to do. They are trying to promote mixed use developments.”
Plans for the building include constructing three or four retail spaces on the ground floor with about 14 small offices on the second floor. The third and fourth floors will be built out to include 14 loft-style apartments ranging from 850 to 1,150 square feet.
Mike Shad said he would like to see the theater space on the first floor get leased to a upscale restaurant or cafe but a pending lawsuit between the building’s new owners and the theater’s current lease holder could affect that. The theater space is currently occupied by a nightclub, which Shad’s group is trying to evict based on a number of alleged breaches of contract by the nightclub’s owners. Plans for the theater’s future are being put on hold until after the suit is decided in mid-February, Shad said.
Legal issues aside, Shad said the investors bought the theater building after doing some research and finding out the historical relevance and architectural significance of the structure.
“This is a very significant building,” said Shad, who is the managing member of the Five Points Theater Building, LLC. “It was built in 1927. It was the first theatre in Florida built for talking movies.”
When the Shads and their associate partners took over the building in the fall, it resembled the definition of blight. The facade was covered with poorly installed stucco and the upper floors were abandoned. The hardwood flooring of the top three floors was covered with soiled orange or green shag carpet reminiscent of the 1970’s and the electrical system was dangerously outdated.
“Once we started doing a little research and figured out what would be underneath the stucco, we knew that it would be a very striking building and that we would be able to bring it back to its previous signifigance,” Shad said. “Being able to change the neighborhood and improve it is all part of it.”
And improving the neighborhood is a very large part of the renovation project, said Bonnie Grissett, executive director of the Riverside Avondale Preservation, Inc.
“We think the restoration and the bringing the Five Points Theater back to life will be of great importance to the Five Points area’s appearance,” she said.
Grissett said she is especially excited about the plans to make the building a mixed-use property. She said the mixed use functionality of the building will “works right into the uniqueness of the area.”
Several business owners and employees that work near the theater are also in high support of the renovation project.
Tom McCleery, co-owner of Edge City, a clothing store across the street from the theater, said the renovation is “wonderful for the neighborhood.”
“It has basically been a warehouse for the last 20 years,” McCleery said. “The retail spaces were used but the upper floors were just storage. That doesn’t do much for the neighborhood.
“I am very excited about the building, architecturally and for the growth of the area. It is a beautiful building and it has been covered with stucco since 1972.”
McCleery, a 29-year resident of the neighborhood, said he remembers what the building looked like before the stucco facade was applied and is looking forward to the completion of the project.
“I think it really fits the needs and architectural dreams in the neighborhood,” he said. “It will create more wonderful retail spaces and I think it will be an upgrade to the retail side of the area, plus it will expand the residential base, and anything that expands the residential base helps the retail.”
Tonya Lee, owner of Roost, an artsy interior design store down the street from McCleery’s store, said she is also looking forward to the new apartments above the theater but for another reason.
“It will give more of a neighborhood feeling to this direct area, not just the Riverside area,” Lee said. “It will create a different sort of idea of community as far as living and working and shopping and having the entire experience in a very, very small radius.”
Lee said she has lived in a similar urban neighborhoods like Five Points in cities like Raleigh, N. C. and in New York City. With her fingers crossed, Lee said she hope that the theater’s renovation will prime Five Points to become a more diverse retail area.
“I don’t necessarily want it to only move upscale,” she said. “I would just like to see diversity of some nature. I don’t think upscale is neceisarily the best outcome for this neighborhood because it has a certain reputation of being distinct from San Marco and Avondale and it is necessary for us to keep our identity in that manner.”
While many of the business owners in the area seem to have only good things to say about the project, there is one minor issue of concern in the neighborhood — parking.
The Five Points area is often congested with traffic due to a lack of ample parking. Riverside Avondale Preservation’s Grissett, however, sees the congestion as a good thing.
“It means that people are there and they are coming and going,” she said. “When you have to go around the block to find a parking space, that means that people are shopping there, which is a good thing.”