Mixed-use development planned for South Main
Joe Frank, owner of JPF Homes and the builder of several bungalow homes in Fort Worth’s Near Southside area, has put a contract on six lots along South Main Street at East Peter Smith Street for his planned Rocco Francis Plaza development – a mixed-use project he hopes will further solidify the growth of the Main Street corridor just south of downtown Fort Worth.
At present, the property at 417 Main St. holds a collection of boarded up buildings and over-grown grass, but Frank said that soon will be history – as soon as 60 days, in fact.
Frank currently is bidding out the demolition for the property with plans to begin tearing down structures as early as mid-December. Architectural plans for Rocco Francis Plaza are in their final stages, Frank said.
“I can’t even describe how excited I am about this project,” Frank said. “It’s something I’ve been waiting a long time to do.”
This project will be completed under Frank’s Fort Worth Urban firm. JPF Homes is the parent corporation of Fort Worth Urban and Fort Worth Bungalow, the entity Frank operated under to build the Fairmount homes.
The development originally was slated for nearby Hemphill Street, but was moved after Frank had conversations with another area builder, Eddie Vanston, president of The Carillon Group Inc. and one of the key players in the successful redevelopment of the Near Southside. The Main Street location also falls into a city of Fort Worth designated Tax Increment Financing District as well as a Neighborhood Empowerment Zone – two designations set up to help foster development in identified areas of Fort Worth through fee waivers and incentives.
Frank has met with city of Fort Worth staff in a pre-development conference for the Hemphill project and he is sure the city will support the Main Street version. He’s also garnered the support of the Main Street Property Owners Association.
The development will include five, three-story townhomes starting at 1,500 square feet with a starting price tag of $175,000. The project also will feature five slightly larger live/work townhomes along Main Street – a product type Frank has successfully developed and sold before along Henderson Street at the J.D. Moore Building. The live/work units will offer a ground floor storefront with residential space above and will start at $235,000.
In the center of the townhomes will be a 4,000-square-foot, single-story retail building and Frank said he has two tenants lined up for the space. Half of the building will operate as a farmer’s market. Frank said he is in talks with Jack Finley, a local farmer who runs farmers markets in several area cities including the former downtown Fort Worth Farmers Market that closed after the property was sold and re-developed.
“Jack wants to be here, the neighborhood wants Jack, and we are going to find a way to get him here,” Frank said.
Frank also is in talks with Justin Gifford, of Gifford Beef Co., to offer locally farmed beef, poultry, pork and fish at the farmers market.
The other half of the building is slated to be the new home of the Gallery Art Café, owned and operated by Doris Sawey and currently located at 609 S. Jennings St., just south of the planned development.
“I like what he and Eddie are doing here,” Sawey said of Frank. “It’s great for us. We can provide something [area residents] would like. This is a gathering place and the expanded patio will allow us to offer more things. It’s just a better location for us.”
Frank said the farmer’s market and Gallery Art Café were chosen specifically because of their ties to the Near Southside.
“This area is so devoted to locals. It’s a little family inside the loop,” he said. “They’re the perfect tenants.”
Financing for Rocco Francis Plaza will be a mix of private and bank funds. Frank had five investors for the original Hemphill project and three of those have agreed to back the Main Street development – the other two, he said, are still considering. And though financing any deal these days is tough, Frank said banks are beginning to get excited about the Main Street area.
“When I first started in Fairmount, you had to find a 30-year-old banker to understand the area, but now the 60-year-old bankers are coming on,” he said. “They’re beginning to see what’s happening here.”
Bob Kelly of Robert W. Kelly Architect Inc. at 209 S. Main St. is completing the architectural work for Rocco Francis Plaza. And as a future neighbor of the project, Kelly said he couldn’t be happier to welcome the development to the neighborhood.
Frank said though all design elements have not been chosen for the townhomes, each will feature high-end finish-outs such as wood floors and exposed bricks on the interiors.
“At this price point, it’s going to work. I wouldn’t dare building anything above $250,000 right now,” Frank said. “Townhomes have just gone crazy around here. Everybody thought they could get $200 a square foot for them, but Fort Worth’s just not there yet.”
Vanston recently completed the restoration of the Miller Manufacturing Co. building, a concrete warehouse built in 1911 on Bryan Street just behind the slated Rocco Francis Plaza. Vanston said nearly 70 percent of the apartments at Miller Manufacturing have been leased and he has had to turn several interested buyers down at the property.
“I’ve had three people come in wanting to buy units. I can only do rentals because of the historic tax credit I’m getting, which says I have to maintain ownership of the property for five years. But that tells me that people are interested in living there and owning there and Joe’s product has always moved, so it’s a good thing,” Vanston said.
Frank is buying the lots for Rocco Francis Plaza – which is named in honor of Frank’s grandfather – from Vanston, who will hold onto a 5,000-square-foot building at the corner of Main and East Broadway Avenue for a future rehab project. Vanston said the use for that building will be commercial, but he has yet to determine its exact usage.
Frank said Rocco Francis Plaza should wrap up construction by mid-2010 and a Web site for the development, fortworthurban.com, is available for interested buyers to make refundable reservations.
“There are a lot of things I like about this development, but most of all, it will be green,” Frank said. “Everything will be green. I’ve waiting a long time to do a development like this – pretty much since I started building and everything that can be green will be” such as tankless water heaters and a green roof with plenty of vegetation on the retail building – possibly a vine canopy, he added.
