A Conversation With ... Irene Schaefer

Springfield Business Journal conducts the annual Economic Growth Survey, and this year 41% of business leaders said that destination retail was a needed development in our community to grow. Tell me about how C-Street has shifted over the years to become that in north Springfield.
Destination retail for me is all inclusive. That would be shops and restaurants and bars. Over the years, Commercial Street has been at its high of developing north Springfield to its lows of where we’ve had quite a bit of homelessness on the streets. It really started to take more of a turn over the last eight to 10 years. When my partners and I bought my building in 2017, we still had people that might be sleeping in our door well in the morning. That’s certainly not the case anymore. The retail has shifted from a flea market-type product into more of vintage shops or a honey shop or an artist’s shop. I’m not going to lie, it’s still hard to hold a lot of retail-type shops because we aren’t there yet. We will get there. And we’ll get there because of things like our restaurants. Our restaurants are over the top phenomenal. That’s been an evolution too. Joe Gidman, who is very active on the street, has Chabom, the tea house; he has Cafe Cusco; and he has Van Gogh’s. Those three businesses alone have just brought so much growth of that international flavor, something different. We also have the Cuban La Habana Vieja, as well as That Lebanese Place and Basilico with Italian and of course Pizza House. Lindberg’s has that bar menu, but COVID upscaled the menu. The restaurant and bar-type business, that continues to grow. The retailers will get there. And then of course with the bridge and all the activity of development around us, Commercial Street is poised for not just destination retail, it’s destination.

There are plans for more residential developments along and around C-Street. How will that impact retailers? What else is needed to get there, as you say?
We are growing population with residential. Prosperity Partners heads up the Commercial-Pacific Redevelopment Plan. It’s quite an extensive development project from the street south over one to two blocks. At the corner of Washington, that building has now come down and it was proposed and approved by City Council that there was, I believe, a 40- or a 45-unit residential on that corner. (Titus Williams) was also approved through City Council for the Pacific South project, encompassing probably 80 to 120 residential units. We have the Vecino Group putting in a project at Campbell and Commercial Street, which will bring another 42 units. And then just west of that is a property owned by Arkifex, and they have an approved proposed plan for another building there, another 42 units, and mixed use. You start adding up all those units, that’s a substantial increase. You bet that will bring a lot more foot traffic. As far as the retail shops, we’ve got two grocery stores on either end of the district, but we are going to need more. When you start bringing in those kinds of numbers into residential units over the next three to five years, while those can be supportive, you still need those small little places for milk, bread, eggs.

Funding to reopen the Jefferson Avenue Footbridge has been approved and work will begin on that. The project grew substantially over the years to nearly $11 million. I understand stakeholders on Commercial Street are trying to determine how to really capitalize on that investment. What’s in discussion?
We aren’t in the depths of those conversations yet. We’re two and a half, three years out. What we have begun is the planning of the opening, having a grand event. So those discussions among different community groups have all started. But as far as the actual putting a pen and paper to the scope-of-work sheets and things that the city will do, that hasn’t begun to really be shared with the community yet. I think it’s an anchor of Springfield. North Springfield has just kind of fallen off the map over the years and it shouldn’t have. We’ve got to revitalize and do what we’re doing. The bridge will do a lot for bringing people here from all over the country, all over the world. This bridge is special. There’s very few of them in the world.

What are you doing to market C-Street as a destination to people outside of the area?
That’s the brilliant Chance Parish. He is our social person. We are working with the (Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau). We’re concentrating more on social media aspect. We use the magic of C-Street as a tagline. We use it on our ads, we’ve got it on our maps. It’s different. We don’t have the franchise. Our businesses on our street are all locally owned. It really is a community. We are a historic district. And then the Missouri Hotel project, we haven’t seen what the final plan will be, but my understanding is it will be a boutique hotel with some adjacency on those buildings that might also bring more retail.

The CID manages the sales tax for the district. How is tax revenue performing?
Last year we ended up closing down a little overall, but we lost six or seven pretty significant businesses from the street. This year, I think we’re running flat, maybe slightly up. It is driven by growth of restaurants and bars. We’re watching those numbers close. We’ve got nothing but good stuff coming.