Jared moves on remodeling Country Club Center

Curtis Jared has thrown in the towel and grabbed a hammer.

The CEO of commercial property management firm Jared Enterprises has worked for a decade to convince multiple property owners of the roughly 60-year-old Country Club Center it was ready for facility and infrastructure upgrades. But different owners have different priorities, and until now, renovation efforts had failed at the southwest corner of Bennett Street and Glenstone Avenue.

After Bill Smillie closed his Country Club anchor Smillie’s Market in June 2012, remodeling became a priority for Jared as he sought to fill the space.

Only recently has the property owner garnered enough support for infrastructure to pull the trigger on plans.

But for building renovations, Jared decided he needed to chart his own course. Currently, Jared Properties is remodeling the former 20,000-square-foot Smillie’s grocery store – 8,600 square feet to be occupied by Family Dollar this spring – as well as renovating three adjacent properties that house a smoke shop, comic book store and pawn shop.

He said most of the building renovations are complete, and crews are beginning work on the parking lot.

“We’ve got our new sign up, they just got the base of it bricked and stoned, and so we have a lot of stuff done. Here in the next 60 days, it will be warm enough that we should have everything sealed and restriped and be good to go,” Jared said.

Different views
In aging strip centers with multiple owners and tenants, getting everyone on the same page can be as daunting as the renovations themselves.

“Right now, we are the only ones doing anything,” Jared said of Country Club Center, a 52,800-square-foot strip mall with six individual property owners.

He said the owners of Springfield Leather Co. have remodeled their store in recent years, but in terms of getting an overall consistent look across the properties, Jared doesn’t see that happening anytime soon.

“We’ve discussed it, but we had to move ahead for our national client because that’s what they require. So we just bit the bullet,” Jared said. “We’re going to work down to the comic book store, so we’ll stop at Cosmic Fish, and then we’ll talk with the rest and see if we can do something over time.”

Aspen Properties LLC co-owner Aaron Wilken said he hasn’t ruled out doing a facelift to the home of its Country Club tenant, The Magic Bean Coffeehouse at 1449 S. Glenstone Ave.

“We’re doing the parking lot for now,” Wilken said, declining to estimate Aspen’s planned investment.

Wilken and business partner Gary Sevey of Liberty Income Tax nearly a decade ago bought the Country Club site at an auction as an investment property. An additional investment in the property is not high on their priority list.

“I haven’t heard the tenant complain,” said Wilken, who also operates Wilken and Associates Realtors LLC.

An employee of The Magic Bean Coffeehouse abruptly turned down SBJ’s interview request outside of the storefront.

All Breed Pet Grooming moved out of Country Club Center in November, and owner Tony Ellison said outdated electrical infrastructure was his impetus.

“The wiring needs to be totally redone,” Ellison said, adding he wasn’t a fan of Jared’s efforts last year to establish a Community Improvement District at Country Club Center to help pay for renovations.

“I was totally opposed to that,” he said, noting his customers shouldn’t foot the property owner’s bill through increased sales taxes.

Ellison is now operating his pet grooming business down the street at Glenstone Square, and his former Country Club space, 1451 S. Glenstone Ave., remains vacant.

Jared, whose family-owned company owns more than 50 percent of the center, sought Springfield City Council approval of the CID that would have raised $1.16 million in sales taxes for renovations. After a few council members expressed concerns last March about supporting a designation of blight for an area largely occupied by commercial tenants who could fund renovations on their own, Jared pulled the plans.

Choosing sides
Jared and the Country Club owners aren’t the only ones grappling with these issues.

Jim Thomason, owner of Glass Unlimited at 1245 E. Republic Road, is a tenant and manager of a divided strip center on the south side of town. Just east of National Avenue on the north side of Republic, this unnamed collection of retail properties is split in two with businesses such as Pellegrino’s School of Music and The Loan Machine flashing a new facade, while dated looks remain at The Fabric Outlet and Donna Richardson Upholstery.

Thomason’s business sits on the older side, and he’s grateful for it.

“It’s a matter of $550 a month rent versus around $1,150,” he said.

Thomason manages most of the unrenovated properties for owner David Mires, who owns all but one property on the west side of the center. Mires’ brother, Ralph, owns and remodeled much of the east side of the strip center and the rents that followed doubled to cover the costs, Thomason said.  

He said Mires likely would install new doors and windows at some point, but he wouldn’t do so much as to drive his tenants away.

“In time, he’ll fix them up, but to do what his brother did, that would make most of us move out,” Thomason said.

David Scovell, who owns multiple properties at Plaza Shopping Center at the corner of Glenstone Avenue and Sunshine Street, said he runs an association that serves the collective needs of the Plaza’s more than a dozen property owners who lease to roughly 30 tenants.

He said the association was formed nearly two decades ago when renovations at the 1940s-built center were overdue. Scovell said many of the properties are today run by trusts, and if it weren’t for the association, nothing would get done. When it comes to lawn mowing or snow plowing – which cost roughly $3,000 this winter – the association contracts the work and bills the owners in proportion to the space they occupy.

“That’s what they should do over there,” the 85-year-old Scovell said of Country Club Center.

The system’s not perfect, though. He said sometimes a couple of the owners are slow to pay or don’t pay at all, leaving the association responsible.

Nearly a year after the CID push, Jared said he’s pleased the Country Club owners are at least working together on something.

“I’ve been working on this for well over 10 years now. Originally, there were concrete dividers in the middle that we took out. We had resurfaced the lot – about 10 years ago. Everything has been in baby steps,” Jared said.

“That’s why I tried to go through that whole process with getting the area blighted and the CID established. If we could’ve done that, things would have gone a lot quicker. But when you have that many owners, there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians.”[[In-content Ad]]