New Resident Profile Series

Name: Will Toraason & Jamie Ferguson

Age: 33 & 31 respectively

Status: Dating / Committed relationship

Location: Pearl Street

Occupation: Will is a Naval Flight Officer and Jamie is a Management Consultant.

Fun Fact: This couple has a need…..a need for speed, that can only be quenched by riding high performance motorcycles.

Q: What brought you to Springfield?

Will: The internet! I was stationed in Japan at the time, and searching online for a house in Jacksonville. Wait - let back track a little.

I was stationed in Jacksonville previously, and had lived in a few different areas of town. I like original neighborhoods, but so much of Jacksonville is track housing and strip malls. I knew I wanted something different. So while I was in Japan, I searched online for something that fit my taste. I found the old SPAR internet forum by chance and really liked what I found. Neighbors having fun together, working together and actually helping each other. I loved it.  So when I returned to Jacksonville, I knew where I wanted to be.

Unfortunately my realtor at the time didn’t see it the same way. She resisted even showing me houses in the neighborhood and insisted I look in Avondale and San Marco. Those are nice neighborhoods, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t what I was looking for. So I dropped her and went through one of the local realtors that knew the area well enough to give me an educated opinion.

Jamie: When Will told me about the neighborhood he found, I thought he was crazy. He kept on saying how cool it was, but I had reservations. I have friends that had some bad experiences in the neighborhood, 10 years ago or so, so I wasn’t really excited about the idea. But I decided to let him try and convince me. Besides, I don’t necessarily like cookie-cutter neighborhoods ether. They can be too impersonal.
Q: Did you purchase an old or new house, and why?

Jamie: Both, kind of. It’s an old house, built in 1906, but it was renovated not that long ago. We looked at a variety of other homes in the neighborhood too, but we really liked the location over looking the park and our immediate neighbors. Those were strong selling points.

Will: I just liked the garage.

Q: How did you decide that this specific house was the one for you?

Will: Well, a couple things:

   1. It’s cool to know the history of your house, and that the house has history. A 100 years of history, past lives, and stories. And that we’ll be adding to that history. The character is unique, the floor plan is unique, it has the original fireplace, etc.

   2. Jamie was hesitant about the area at first, so we visited often. We would drive by the house to check things out. Then we started to walk our dogs in the neighborhood on the weekends, to get a better feel for it. We got to know the neighbors before we moved in just by being around so often, and that was really cool. We were sold.

Q: What did your family and friends think of your decision to move into the neighborhood?

Will: My friends like it and think it’s a fun area. We’re so close to downtown entertainment and there’s life in the neighborhood, so it’s an interesting place to be. I’ve lived near downtown Pittsburgh and San Diego before, and my sister lives in downtown Dallas, so it’s nothing new with us.

Jamie: My family is used to living in gated communities, so they don’t quite understand why I choose not to live in one now. In Bartram Trail Park, a new Jacksonville subdivision where I used to live, everything was shiny and new. They don’t see why I would ever leave that.

Q: Since moving in, what have you enjoyed most about the neighborhood?

Will: I would say the sociability. We go to all the get-togethers and parties that we can, and the camaraderie is real. The Dog Park is nice to have too. 

Oh, I’d be remiss without mentioning my favorite place to hangout, Fusion Wine & Jazz Bar. It’s a really nice place to lounge and have a drink, but it’s casual and friendly at the same time. I’m up there almost every Sunday. Oh yeah, and Shantytown Pub too. On certain days it’s $1 drafts if you bring your dog. How cool is that?

Jamie: I like walking to different events and venues: to Art Walk, to The Landing, different local restaurants and bars, the parks, etc.

Q: Do you plan on participating in any neighborhood events or organizations?

Jamie: We’ve already enjoyed the Wine Society’s Chili Cook-Off, the Holiday Home Tour, the New Year’s Eve Wandering Cocktail party, and the Thanksgiving festivities. 

Will: I’ve attended a couple Block Captain meetings and want to be active in that group. I’m interested in the garden classes too.

Q: How do you see the neighborhood evolving?

Jamie: We’ve only been here about 8 months and have already seen a lot of changes. The chocolate and sweets shop is opening soon, Shorty’s Seafood Market just opened, and the Laura Street Community Garden is “growing” quickly. 

Will: I see it evolving day by day. New people moving in. Homes restored. People doing their own little beautification projects, like painting fire hydrants and planting flowers in roundabouts. The only thing holding it back right now is the foreclosure crisis. Once that clears up I think progress will accelerate even more.

Q: Anything that you specifically hope to see in the future?

Jamie: What I really want is a yoga studio I can walk to, or maybe yoga classes in one of the parks. That’s on my wish list.

Will: I read that there was a dog walkers group in the neighborhood at one time, so I’d like to see that start up again.

Q: What advice would you give to people considering making a move to Springfield?

Will: It’s such a fun, eclectic mix of people here. A good way to meet an array of them is to go to a First Friday party. Different residents hold a social party every month, the first Friday of the  month, in a home or outdoor space. They are a lot of fun, all ages welcome, and you get great insight into the neighborhood and the people that live here. Any of local realtors can fill someone in with the details if they’re interested.

Jamie: The houses are cool, yes, but the people are cooler! And the benefits out weigh the occasion stolen porch chair ( laugh ).
 

Long-time Resident Profile Series

Name: Michael Trautmann

Age: 52

Status: Long-time partners with Adam Halstead

Location: W. 5th Street

Occupation: Real estate developer and investor

Fun Fact: While Michael is known for his historic restorations locally, he builds new developments in other cities such as Austin, TX and Cincinnati, OH. 

Q: What brought you to Springfield ?

A: I was restoring houses in Atlanta in the mid 80’s when a friend of mine invited me to vacation in Atlantic Beach. I was always looking for what was around the corner, and came upon Historic Springfield. As everyone knows, it was a complete dump back then. You name the illegal activity and it was happening in Springfield. You name it and it was going down here to the tenth power. Crime, poverty, corruption….everything. The City of Jacksonville dumped all it’s bad things in this one little area and kept a lid on it, not wanting anything to escape to the suburbs. Well, I wasn’t interested, but I did keep my eye on the area. 

A few years later a lot of smart people and important institutions started to pay attention to Springfield. The famed DuPont family used to vacation in the neighborhood back in it’s heyday, so they had a soft spot for it. They designated part of their trust for improvements to the area. Harvard and the National Trust started eyeing the area. That caught my attention. Soon after, it was designated as a historically significant area, with significant history and architecture. Significant to the city, to the state, and deemed significant nationally. 

I bought my first house in Springfield in 1988, but didn’t actually move here until 1991. 

Q: What were some of your challenges or concerns at that time?

A: My God, what wasn’t I concerned about? I was doing well in Atlanta and left a comfortable situation there to move down into lawless chaos. People thought I had lost my mind, and I thought I was crazy myself sometimes.

My concerns were, in no particular order:

   1. Everything was slated for demolition. Seriously, almost everything. That’s one of the reasons the federal government acted so quickly in designating the area a National Historic District.
   2. You couldn’t get financing here. That was out of the question. Everything in the area was “redlined”. It was cash or nothing.
   3. Crime, of course, was horrendous. Living conditions for the people living in he area were generally awful.
   4. Local government at all levels turned a blind eye to the area, from the top down. Police were corrupt and selectively enforced laws in the area.
   5. Zoning was awful. The overall infrastructure was terrible.


Q: What kind of changes have you seen since 1988?

A: There have been countless changes, both systematic and small.

Former Mayor Delaney, Jeanie Fuel, Preston Haskell, Tony Sleiman, Ring Power, and a bunch of other powerful city leaders got together and tried to hammer out some kind of vision for how to get Jacksonville right side up again. I mean, Jacksonville has characteristics other cities would die for: a downtown river, surrounding existing historic neighborhoods, etc, yet the urban core was floundering! 

A city is like a bicycle wheel, with downtown at the center, and the spokes shoot out from that. If the center of the wheel is broken, the whole thing caves in. And that’s what was in danger of happening. So that was the first step to big, systematic changes. It was decided that Springfield had to improve substantially before downtown would make it. 

You see, the only thing that matters in local government is tax revenue. It’s not about Democrat or Republican on the local level; it’s just about increasing the tax base. That’s how cities grow. And Springfield was freaking goldmine that they had let pass.

Regarding more specific changes, the percentage change of property values in Springfield have far exceeded any other area’s increase in value. You could buy a lot for $500 when I first moved here. Heck, people would give them away, literally, just so they wouldn’t have to mow the lawn.

Also, rents have more or less leveled out equal to Riverside, which is amazing. When I moved here, a lease was unheard of. People paid by the week, sometimes by the day. You can imagine what went on in those properties. Now, we field calls from people wanting to live specifically in Springfield. It’s night and day.

The population has changed too. It’s a mixture of all kinds of people, rich and poor, black and white, young and old. It’s changed dramatically for the better.

Lastly, the level of support from police has increased substantially. If you called the cops back then, they could care less. It was an extremely low priority. Nowadays, police are a huge asset and support to the community. A number of police officers live here now, which is amazing if you think about it.
 
Q: Does your house have a story?

A: It has a long story, and I’ve documented most of it. Construction began in 1915 and ended in 1917, making it one of the last original houses built in the neighborhood.  Arthur Stephens, the President of Merrill Stephens Ship Building Company at the time, built it. He had a PhD from MIT and had friends in high places, per se. I found letters from Woodrow Wilson and Thomas Edison in the attic, with original Thomas Edison light bulbs. Original.

The house itself is made out of ship building materials, so it’s extremely unique. You’ll find marine brass throughout the house, a ship’s boiler in the basement, and most of the house was made out of a special kind of ship building cement that Arthur Stephen’s patented. It’s a steel frame structure too, not wood. The house was made to be hurricane proof, termite proof, and fire proof. Pretty indestructible, right? 

Well, it was depilated and set for demo when I bought it. Very bad shape. Seven people were murdered inside the house since it had gone into disrepair; it was open to the elements for 7 years and it needed a complete restoration.

It was hell, absolute hell, restoring it. And I fought the city tooth and nail to do so. They pulled out every dirty trick in the book to get me to just quit and give up. Eventually, through some well placed phone calls, we won their support and things went smoother.
 
Q: Do you have any memorable stories you can share?

A: Too many. I’m not a big gun person really, but there was so much crime, theft, vandalism, etc going on in our work sites back then that I suited up all my work crew with western-style holsters and pistols. Lone Ranger style. They wore their pistols on their work belts and our vandalism rates dropped to zero. That problem was solved in a hurry.

Another funny story was when my house was just about finished and I wanted to have the electricity turned on. That was a much bigger deal than I anticipated. I went into the JEA office, told them where I lived and that I wanted my power turned on. They looked at me like I was nuts, but I left with having paid the fee and everything was set. Well, the morning that my power was to be turned on, 8 JEA trucks showed outside my house. Apparently the power hadn’t officially been used by anyone on my block for years. Everyone was stealing electricity! It took 8 trucks and a full day to legally turn on the power to my block. I heard it cost JEA $150k.

The house has been featured in various design magazines and TV shows too, which has been pretty cool.
 
Q: What did you enjoy about the neighborhood when you first moved in?

A: It had a bohemian feel. People could do almost whatever they wanted, without fear of  law or regulations. It was the Wild West, an unpainted canvas with endless possibilities. And there I was, some yuppie, preppy guy from Atlanta making a go of it. Me and other pioneers, like Joyce Holbrook, Michael Bryant, David Mosley, The Baxley’s, the Reagan’s, Hal Sisk, and Raymond Tire, all shared a weird and wonderful bond.

Q:  What do you enjoy most about the neighborhood now?

A: I would say the neighborhood is more like a part of me now. It’s almost a spiritual thing. I’ve lived her longer now than where I grew up. This is my home. This is where I want to be. You get to see the whole world here, the whole spectrum. Not just the view through the peephole of a gated community.

I was thinking about moving to Ortega at one time. Thinking about it seriously. But Sheriff Rutherford, coincidently, was also interested in the particular house I was looking at, and I started to compare to two properties. After reevaluating everything, I realized I couldn’t get anywhere near what I had now in Ortega. And I liked the people here. So why would I move? That was that, and I stayed. 

I’m here forever now….just bury me here!
 
Q: Do you take part in any of the neighborhood events or organizations?

A: I was on every kind of board, committee, and task force there was for a long time. I served on the SPAR Board for almost 10 years, the municipal code board, Downtown Vision Council, VP of Neighborhood Housing Services, etc. I’m not as active in the local organizations anymore, but I do take interest if there’s an important issue happening in the neighborhood.
 
Q: How do you see the neighborhood progressing in the future?

A: It will keep trending upward. The quality of restorations in the neighborhood has gotten much better. There aren’t as many flippers looking to make a quick buck, which is good.

Progress in the neighborhood has far surpassed the commercial corridors, especially Main Street. That should be the focus: Main Street. Main Street. Main Street. We have new roads, great landscaping, and even dramatic lighting. We need the right kind of businesses now. My big thing is getting a Publix into the neighborhood. I’ve had discussions with them before, but the numbers aren’t right yet. It may not happen in the next few years, but mark my words…it will happen.

Q: Is there anything that you’d like to say to you someone thinking about moving into the neighborhood?

A: In general, this is the single greatest time to buy real estate in my lifetime. You couldn’t pick a better time to buy. All the stars are aligned for the buyer right now.

Historic Springfield, specially, is on the upswing and it has a lot of momentum.

Property values will comeback, there’s no doubt in my mind, across the board really. But Springfield stands to especially benefit. The ROI for the city is so awesome here, because there is relatively low infrastructure costs. So the city will make it a priority to continue to aid Springfield it’s rebirth. It can’t afford not to. We may just have to remind them of that now and then.
 

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