Cafe seeks rejuvenation of Ozark square

Eric Cot knew the risks in-volved with running a restaurant on the northwest corner of Ozark's square. His Tuscany Cafe, at 107 W. Church St., is the fourth restaurant in that lo-cation in as many years.

The problem, he said, is lack of other retail involvement.

But since opening the Italian cafe last May, he has been successful in generating a local lunch crowd, along with a more diverse crowd in the evenings.

"This is a very unique and difficult location to make work," Cot said. "It's very difficult to draw a crowd from somewhere besides this square for lunch because you can't park cars on it."

Employees of the Christian County Courthouse, located in the center of the square, as well as those from the service-oriented businesses that surround it, occupy the day-time parking there and also make up the lunch rush. For dinner, the customers are completely different, he said, coming from Springfield, Nixa, Fremont Hills, Millwood and Briar-brook.

"Springfield is more my market than Ozark is," Cot added.

The parking situation may be alleviated soon. The new $7.6 million jail and judicial center officially opened Jan. 14 on the south side of the square, and its new parking lot will soon accommodate some of those vehicles.

However, that will not address the lack of retail businesses on the square. Cot said his restaurant is one of only three retail-oriented businesses, making it tough to draw a crowd.

"Everything else is a service-oriented business," he said. "We're a planned de-cision place; it's not like there's any impulse shopping going on down here."

The other retail businesses there are Fox's Pizza and Hazel's Flowers.

"When I first came to the square, one of the things that everybody said was, It's important that you survive, because restaurants usually are a base that help start to revitalize something.' They bring people (in)," Cot said.

Once people start to gather, Cot said, he believes businesses will pop up to serve customers.

"There's been no coalition devised and developed to do that," he said. "And until that's achieved, it's a tough road to hold. In 1981 this square was more lively, more established," he added.

Another retail-store owner on the square, Bobbi Wixson, thinks the square is close to rejuvenation. Wixson, owner of Hazel's Flowers for the past 13 years, is a past president of Ozark Community Development Authority, and she said the city has been working at revitalization for about seven years.

"We were very fledgling back then and only learning," she said. "It's very highly interdependent on your city government ... as well as the populace, as well as the businesspeople. Their are a lot of factions that enter into an endeavor like that. Once you get on the same page, then great things start happening and I think that's where we're about to get with Ozark."

She compared it to downtown Spring-field's resurgence and the time it is taking to revive its square. "These processes do take a long time," Wixson said. "The average time to really get anything going is eight to 15 years, so we're really not that far off target."

Springfield Area Chamber of Com-merce President Jim Anderson agrees.

"It's only been in recent years that our center city has started this redevelopment, or renaissance, as I like to call it," Anderson said. The reason, he said, is because public and private sectors began working together.

Anderson said that Springfield's private sector has been doing the investing and the public sector has provided support through infrastructure and planning, "which is what the city's role should be," he said. "I'm not sure that's happened in Ozark yet. But I think that in time we are going to see that happen ... if people get centered on the importance of center city and the square."

Looking out his window, Cot can see 10 storefronts on the square's west side, which is a world of opportunity to him. He said there are probably six vacancies on the square in all.

"I think it's important we rebuild the whole community, not just my corner," he said. "My corner can be instrumental in that, but I can't do it they've got to help. If they want to see a downtown re-vitalized, somebody else has got to step up to the plate and help do that."

According to Ozark City Manager Collin Quigley, right now the revitalization efforts are based primarily on the initiatives of the square's business owners, but the city soon will step in.

"The city is applying soon for a CDBG community development block grant for downtown revitalization," Quigley said.

It is a matching grant of up to $300,000, Quigley said, which means matching funds must come from the bus-iness owners in the community. The city is in the process of writing the grant.

"Right now, that's our involvement to this point." In the future, he said, the city will be involved in such areas as streetscapes, lighting and trees "to see where we could best utilize our services."

For Cot, being a part of revitalization is half the fun of running the restaurant, and it was the building's history that inspired him to open the cafe his first ownership role in 23 years of restaurant experience.

The attraction is that it's in a 100-year-old building in a historic setting and in a historic community, he said. "You don't get all of that ambience by going out and putting this out at (Highway) 65 and CC," he added.

The three-story, nearly 12,000-square-foot building, which is owned by developer Bill Macier, was built in 1905 by a local doctor. Its original use, according to Cot, was as a drug store, dry good store and doctor's office.

Cot's plans include a total investment of up to $220,000 by the year 2004. That amount includes renovations to the second and third floors of the building.

Anderson, an Ozark native who worked in his parents' hardware and building materials company on the square, said he would like nothing better than to see that area redevelop.

"Everybody needs to get in a room and try to hammer out what their vision is for the redevelopment for downtown," he said. "That's what we did. I think that square will come back and redevelop. There may not be a lot of retail like there was, but there will be some mixed use and their square will come back."