Downtown Domino Effect: College Station and Heer's push center city business activity

Beginning next summer, officials with Hollywood Theaters, the anchor tenant for College Station, anticipate about 500,000 people will annually visit their 14-screen movie theater. Many downtown stakeholders hope those customers spill into the streets of downtown and pump dollars into existing businesses.

“I’ve got a $5 million new construction condo deal that we’re starting to dig on within the next couple weeks, and, man, that project wouldn’t happen without College Station,” said developer Matt Miller, referring to Six23 Condos, which will bring 38 condominiums to 623 W. Walnut St. by summer.

“It’s not just the developers,” said city Economic Development Director Mary Lilly Smith, “but it’s the tenants who are willing to make the commitment to go into the buildings.”

The Coffee Ethic and Rendezvous Coffee are examples of businesses opening downtown with hopes of tapping into College Station and Heer’s traffic. Both coffeehouses are located within blocks of the major projects, and both are slated to open in November.

Jim Hamilton and Tom Billionis are opening The Coffee Ethic at 124 Park Central Square in the Kresge building, and father-son team John and Sean Fleming are opening Rendezvous Coffee at 320 Park Central West, the former home of Randy Bacon Photography.

Hamilton and John Fleming specifically cited College Station and Heer’s as reasons they are opening their coffee shops downtown.

“I think it has had a domino effect,” Smith added, “and it will continue.”

Heer’s developer, St. Louis-based McGowan|Walsh, had not released renovation plans for the 90-year-old building by press time. The firm was scheduled to announce to the city by Oct. 1 which incentives it would seek in the redevelopment.

Smith said College Station and Heer’s should fuel westward expansion of downtown developments, anchoring that part of center city the way Jordan Valley Park and Hammons Field anchor the east, Jordan Valley Innovation Center and Government Plaza anchor the north and Missouri State University anchors the south.

Bacon moved his photography studio west last year to 600 W. College St., establishing Monarch Art Factory, because he said College Station and Heer’s would shift development in that direction.

“It’s pulling the momentum (west),” Bacon said. “It’s going to become more the center of a lot of the development that’s going to happen.”

Miller, who owns 250,000 square feet of building space downtown through Matt Miller Co., expects property prices in western downtown to increase because of Heer’s and College Station.

Lease rates should see a bump, too, according to downtown real estate veteran Sam Freeman, owner/broker of Center City Development Co.

Freeman is asking $8 a square foot to lease his vacant 10,000-square-foot building at 220 S. Campbell Ave., which is across the street from College Station’s parking deck. Once College Station opens for business, Freeman expects to be able to charge a higher rate.

Not every businessperson believes College Station and Heer’s will have a sizably positive impact on existing downtown businesses, though.

Steve Bingham, the local franchisee for two Emack & Bolio’s restaurants – 2925 E. Battlefield Road in Claremont Commons and 3253 E. Chestnut Expressway in the Frisco Office Building – left a downtown spot on Walnut Street last year because of a lack of foot traffic. He doesn’t think that will change because of College Station and Heer’s.

Bingham is interested in joining College Station, and he signed a letter of intent two years ago to be a tenant. However, he expressed frustration in the lack of communication he has received since then from College Station developer Scott Tillman. He said that lack of communication has made him less excited about opening an Emack & Bolio’s in College Station.

“I can’t get him to return my phone calls,” Bingham said.

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