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Eclectic businesses transform the city's once derelict district
An empty warehouse becomes a coffee shop where a diverse crowd gathers to study, chat and listen to music. A former garage takes on new life as a sandwich shop. A building that has been used for everything from a post office to a Salvation Army post becomes the new home for a local music club.
People who study these things call it "urban renewal." It's happening from Atlanta to Seattle, spurred on by local governments and entrepreneurs.
Add Tallahassee's All Saints district to that list.
Several local entrepreneurs recently have turned empty buildings into new businesses in the 800 and 900 blocks of Railroad Avenue - and more plan to open there soon. Other new or relocated businesses have set up shop in All Saints recently, and new businesses have recently popped up in the Railroad Square art park.
The All Saints district has long been marked by empty industrial buildings - and at times, some say, panhandlers and vagrants. But the area also has slowly developed a reputation as a haven for artsy, eclectic businesses.
Nomads Gallery and the Cow Haus music club have been in the All Saints district for several years. (The Cow Haus recently moved to 809 Railroad Ave., the building that once housed a post office and a Salvation Army post, according to landowners.) Railroad Square has long housed art galleries and studio space for artists.
The boundaries of the All Saints district are Gaines Street to the north, the CSX railroad tracks to the south, Railroad Avenue to the west and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the east, according to city planners. Railroad Square is just south of the railroad tracks.
"This feels like a place that's on the cusp of something," said Kehren Barbour, owner of Funkshun Junkshun, a junk shop and art gallery that opened in Railroad Square in July.
A business owner's dream
Lani Peck has had his eye on All Saints for a decade. When a former restaurant supply warehouse on Railroad Avenue came on the rental market, he snapped it up. The refurbished building has been born again as JavaHeads, a coffee shop that officially opened just a month ago - and is already packed many evenings.
The location is a business owner's dream, Peck said. Tucked between Florida State University and Florida A&M University, All Saints is within walking distance for more than 45,000 college students. It's also a short walk from downtown and its thousands of state employees.
The area is evolving into a professional and university district, Peck said. "It's an eclectic, interracial, intercultural mix - Capitol complex professionals, students, Railroad Square artists," he said of his clientele. "Different groups are forced to commingle."
"This country is a place where people are from all over the world," said Yusufu Hakeem, owner of The Kula House, a new boutique featuring international gifts, and the soon-to-open Gateway Natural Marketplace. "We need more areas that reflect that, avenues of cultural exchange. I think (All Saints) is a great area for Tallahassee to reflect that."
Many local business owners say they envision All Saints evolving into a neighborhood similar to Atlanta's Little Five Points, home to funky shops, music clubs and restaurants.
Bev Rae opened Nomads Gallery at 508 W. Gaines St. nine years ago, when All Saints was mainly a district of empty warehouses. "When I opened, people referred to this as 'Little One Point,' " she said.
Why All Saints - and why now?
Much of the space now being developed in the 800 and 900 blocks of Railroad Avenue just became available last summer. The F. Joseph Nahoom family trust, which owns a number of properties in the area, made several of its holdings on Railroad available for rent around that time.
The family anticipates that planned road improvements in the Gaines Street area will drive more activity to the area in the future, said Joyce Magill, Nahoom's granddaughter. Magill is a member of the Gaines Street revitalization committee.
In five or six years, a Florida Department of Transportation project will widen Gaines from Lake Bradford Road to Railroad Avenue, creating a four-lane road with sidewalks and on-street parking. The city also plans stormwater and park improvements in the area.
The Gaines Street corridor "is poised to become the new commercial center for town," said Craig Diamond, an environmental planner with the Tallahassee-Leon County Planning Department. "A couple of market studies have shown that (the area) has a higher potential for commercial and urban residential uses than downtown Orlando."
Business owners see the planned road improvements as a major plus for the area. The road project "will impact traffic and the flow of customers - bring in different people who might not have come to the area before," said Tyrra Carter, who along with her husband owns Intrinsik, a barber/beauty shop and gift shop on Railroad Avenue. "I think people are foreseeing the future benefits of being in the area."
Another factor attracting new businesses to All Saints, many say, is affordable commercial space.
All Saints is "an inexpensive haven for new businesses," said Teresa Reaver, owner of Reaver Enterprises, an art-supply store that has been in Railroad Square since 1989. "It gives people that have an idea for something they would like to do for themselves a little bit more viable place to try it out."
Changing perceptions
Like all new businesses, the businesses coming into the area face challenges.
"Some people have misconceptions about this area - I think there are a lot of people who think it's a high-crime area," said Eli Edmundson, who opened Mr. E Cafe in Railroad Square in August.
Edmundson said he hasn't had any problems with crime. Peck of JavaHeads said he used to see vagrants and panhandlers when he started renovating his store more than a year ago, but those sightings are tapering off. Hakeem sees them occasionally but thinks the neighborhood is heading in the right direction.
Another challenge? Getting folks who have never thought of All Saints as a place to shop or eat to venture off the beaten path. "It's an area where people aren't used to going to hang out," said Luis Jimenez, one of the proprietors of Fat Sandwich, which plans to open in a former garage on Railroad Avenue next month.
City officials and area business owners hope Tallahasseeans will become more aware of All Saints as a residential area as well. The area has a number of homes and is beginning to add more apartment housing.
As businesses and residents move off the beaten path and into All Saints, they're providing local momentum to a movement that is taking place nationwide.
"Urban revival is happening all over the country, and it's happening here in Tallahassee," said JavaHeads' Peck. "Tallahassee has been very reluctant to be a city. . . . Part of what's happening (with All Saints) is turning Tallahassee into a city, instead of a big small town."
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Contact reporter Rachel Sams at rsams@taldem.com or (850) 599-2176.
Posted on Sun, Feb. 10, 2002 in the Tallahassee Democrat
All Saints coming to life
By Rachel Sams
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER
Credit and respect due Gaines area entrepreneurs
Synergy was the buzzword a few years ago in community planning. It means things working together, sometimes inadvertently, but ultimately for the better. On Gaines Street, synergy has become a living concept. Though the area just south of downtown has had unrealized revitalization potential for years - everything from hotels to fine housing - the area is suddenly blooming thanks to old-fashioned individual entrepreneurship.
A DEMOCRAT EDITORIAL, 02/12/2002 02:01 AM CST
Lani Peck remembers how he spent his first days in Tallahassee, searching for what he calls "the U-district" - a place where people could be found window shopping, reading at coffee shops, or enjoying live entertainment outdoors.
On his way to Florida A&M from Florida State, Peck found himself cruising down a strip with rusting warehouses on one side and the skeletons of abandoned businesses on the other. Then he had a revelation.
"I thought to myself, 'This has got to be the strangest place I have ever been,'" Peck said, recalling his first impressions of Gaines Street. "It is the only street connecting two major universities and it looked like an industrial wasteland, but it had the possibility of becoming the destination in Tallahassee; the U-district."
Peck was so intrigued by the potential of the area that he bought one of those abandoned warehouses and turned it into Javaheads Coffee and Roasting at Railroad Avenue and Gaines.
City and county commissioners already had targeted Gaines Street for a makeover, hoping to change it into a destination point for visitors and college students.
Through the Metropolitan Planning Organization, each commission promised to dedicate money and resources to improve the area and used committees and consultants to create the Gaines Street Redevelopment Plan.
Thirteen other businesses have sprouted near or on Gaines Street since Peck moved in three years ago, all waiting for the boom of economic prosperity foretold for the corridor.
Peck said they still are waiting.
"I have risked a lot and worked long hours here based on the promises of the city and the county, and it's time they deliver," he said. "This is ground zero for Tallahassee to become a city and not look like some country, podunk ghost town."
The MPO, which pledged its commitment to the project, has been sitting on design plans for the road since February.
County commissioners fear the more than $48 million cost may be too much for the roadway improvements, while city commissioners are rethinking the design, which may push back plans to square one.
Peck and the Gaines Street Citizens Advisory Committee are upset that revitalization efforts may be delayed because of growing concerns about cost and funding.
Some go as far as labeling the Gaines Street improvements as "another Blair Stone," a roadway project that took decades to begin.
"There is too much stalling going on and people that can invest in Gaines Street can see that," said Joyce Magill, who owns property on Railroad Avenue and is a member of the citizens advisory committee. "People are sitting on their property waiting to see what happens. The plans are just collecting dust."
The Florida Department of Transportation, the agency in charge of the improvements, was planning to expand Gaines into a four-lane road with on-street parking, 12-foot sidewalks and a 42-foot median.
This "boulevard concept" would call for right-of-way acquisitions, which is the majority of the $48.2 million estimated price tag for the project. Money pooled from the city, county and state to fund construction is at $34.4 million, but a proposal to transfer the road into city hands could close that gap by allowing city officials to use a less-expensive design.
The County Commission, which has earmarked $10.7 million of sales-tax revenues for Gaines Street, voted against the city controlling the road and has threatened to pull funding for the project. County Commissioner Cliff Thaell, who is a member of the MPO subcommittee on Gaines Street, originally suggested having the road under city control.
"The question needs to be asked, 'When does revitalizing Gaines Street get to be too much?'" said County Commission Chairman Tony Grippa. "I think it is approaching that point."
The county also argued that if Gaines became a city road, the move could jeopardize federal and state funding for the project. Grippa said he is considering using the money to help solve flooding problems in the county.But not all county commissioners are as hesitant to support the high price tag associated with redeveloping Gaines Street.
"It's a promise we made, and it's a promise I want to keep," said County Commissioner Bob Rackleff. "This is an investment that everyone is going to benefit from."
Craig Diamond, project manager for Gaines Street, said designing a new scaled-back version of the plan may be the answer to lowering the cost of the project. The consultants who created the original redevelopment plan are expected to help choose a new design if the MPO wants to go that route. Efforts also will begin to acquire land along Gaines Street that could be sold to private investors for development.
Diamond said he expects the MPO to have a final decision on the design by January.
"Gaines Street is not a road plan, it's an economic-development plan," said Magill, who has worked with the advisory committee for seven years. "People have put in too much time for others to hold Gaines Street hostage."
Magill, like many other stakeholders, is upset that bickering between the city and county may be what's delaying progress. The citizens advisory committee, which has endorsed the state-designed improvements, has sent a letter to MPO members stating their disapproval of any deviation from the original design.
Their concerns, however, are somewhat different from others involved, Peck said.
"Every university town needs an eclectic university district," he said. "Now all that matters is to get it done. It's going to happen, but are they going to help?
"I just want people to keep their promises."
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Contact reporter Todd Wright at (850) 599-2206 or twright@tallahassee.com.
Posted on Sun, Nov. 02, 2003 in the Tallahassee Democrat
Gaines Street project stalling
Officials balking at $48.2 million cost
By Todd Wright
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER
02/10/2002 All Saints coming to life
11/02/2003 Gaines Street project stalling
03/31/2006 YES! 2-Way Gaines Street!
(PRESENTED ON OUR HOME PAGE IN THE
JAN-MAR 2006 TIMEFRAME - WE WON!)
YES! 2-Way Gaines Street!
One-way streets are a bad idea whose time has passed, as described in:
"City should support plan that will make Gaines a destination" Tallahassee Democrat article by Ruth Wharton
"Are We Strangling Ourselves in One-Way Networks?" (Transportation Research Board) (700kb PDF)
from Ann Arbor MI
A major federal study, that looked at three Florida towns
