New Resident Profile Series

Name: Russ and Bruce

Age: Undisclosed

Occupation: Russ is the Accreditation Coordinator for the American Culinary Federation, and Bruce serves as a Pastor and Professor of Communications.

Location: Pearl Street

Fun Fact:  Russ and Bruce have spent the better part of 20 years collecting art, and their home doubles as a spectacular art museum of sorts. Each piece of art has a story.

How did you arrive in the Springfield Historic District?

Russ & Bruce: We've always loved "transitional" and changing neighborhoods.

We moved from Racine, Wisconsin, and before that we lived in Stanton, Virginia. Stanton is a small community of thirty five thousand or so, but has five historic districts. All different types, from extravagant to not so nice. Our house in Stanton was built in 1904 by a relatively well known architect named TJ Collins. We lived in one of the "transitional" historic districts in Stanton, but after 4 years our professional lives and political preferences drew us to Wisconsin.

Racine, Wisconsin was our destination. We bought a house a block and half away from Lake Michigan, in another federally designated historic district. It was nice, but the winters took their toll. The neighborhood itself was, again, changing and improving, but the local community there didn't necessarily like all the rules that came along with being a historic district. There was a lot controversy on the local level.

We liked it though. We could walk into downtown and walk to festivals and events. We lived there for about two years, but after two Wisconsin winters we decided it wasn't for us. The leaves start to change at the end of August there. It just wasn't where we wanted to put down our final roots. We thought about moving to our vacation house in Spain, a "vacation bolt", as our English friends say, but getting permanent EU citizenship nowadays is very tricky.

In the beginning of 2010 we realized we wanted to leave Wisconsin, to somewhere warmer preferably, so we started looking. Well, we still hadn’t sold our house in Virginia, and now we had the one in Wisconsin too, so we had to figure something out.

In a coincidental turn of events, someone that was interested in our house in Stanton, Virginia was moving away from the Springfield Historic District. It was the first we had heard of the area. We actually entertained trading houses, but unfortunately that didn't work out.  In the process, however, we did a thorough investigation of the neighborhood and it really caught our imagination. We hired a real estate agent in Jacksonville, told them what we wanted, and waited to hear back.

When the agent got back to us, all he brought us were properties in Riverside, Avondale, or Arlington. He really tried to steer us away from Springfield. He even convinced us to fly down from Wisconsin to look at a house in Riverside, which looked really amazing in photographs, I have to admit. But when we got there it didn't look anything like the photos he sent us. It was pretty much stripped. We were very disappointed and decided to take a walk around the area, on Post Street. We looked around and said to ourselves, "what's the big difference between this and Springfield, and why are would we pay so much more to live here?"

So we decided that the Springfield Historic District was where we ultimately wanted to be, and we moved here in May 2010.

Did you buy a historic or new house, and why?

Our house was built in 1908. It was originally a single-family home, then it turned into a duplex years later, then back into a single family home in 1998. This house met just met our needs, really. That's it. That’s why we chose this one specifically. We looked at new replicas and other older ones too, but this one had the character and floor plan that we wanted. Believe it or not, not everyone wants an open floor plan!

What did your family and friends think about the move into the neighborhood?

Our family and friends think we're crazy to begin with! We've been together for about 20 years now, and we've moved our primary residence 8 times, vacation home 4 times, and commercial properties 9 times. So on one hand we were crazy to move again, but on the other hand – why not, it's Florida!

We get more visitors now than we did in Wisconsin, it's safe to say. 

But this is the 3^rd act of our lives, and we don't plan on moving again. Hopefully our ashes will be the last thing that moves from here.

Now that you've settled in, what do you enjoy about the neighborhood?

We really enjoy the people. Like I mentioned, we always loved transitional neighborhoods. Especially historic districts. You see all walks of life, meet all kinds of people, and they are just so much more interesting than bland, suburban neighborhoods. 

I think we live on the quintessential Springfield block, because there's a little bit of everything on our block: elderly people that have lived here forever, young professionals, middle-class families, well-to-do, etc. We've gotten to know people by simply walking our dog down the sidewalk, for example. People stop and say "hello".  We really like that.

We like the proximity to everything too. We have family in Charleston, SC, which is only 4 hours away, and we really enjoy visiting Savannah as well, which is much closer of course. Being centrally located in the city is a plus. Oh, and we enjoy a little café just a couple miles away in downtown. It's become our weekend ritual to have breakfast there, and it's so close.

How do you see the Historic District developing in the future?

I really hope to see Main Street come alive. There's so much to be done there, but I think it will change because there's so much opportunity. If I were a few years younger, I would probably invest on Main myself.

But I think a lot of it is attitude and perception. Once more people start to catch on to the changing demographics here, the falling crime numbers, and the old images and myths start to dissipate, I think the retail and commerce will follow.

We've got to get "outside" people involved and interested too, it can't just be residents.  For example, I spoke to the owner of a nice Italian restaurant and a popular gym about opening up on Main Street. I think business people are coming around to it, but they just aren't "there" quite yet. It will happen.

Maybe we just need to stand up and scream like in the movie Network: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any longer!"

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

We've already been to a couple First Friday parties, we did the Holiday Home Tour, and we went to the Dog Days in the Park festival. We'll see what the future holds.

Do you have any advice for someone thinking about moving into the Springfield Historic District?

I'd give the same advice that we were given:  walk your block. Walk around and become familiar with the environment and your neighbors. Every block is different in the neighborhood, so make sure to be familiar with yours.

Also, use a realtor that knows the area. That makes a big difference.

And one last thing…..be active in the neighborhood! 

Long-Time Resident Profile

Name: Jim Polkey

Age: 42

Occupation: Jim is a firefighter at Station 34 and teaches EMT courses at FSCJ.

Location: Silver Street

Fun Fact:  Jim creates custom t-shirts, bags, banners, and pretty much anything else that can be screen printed as part of Springfield Ink, his creative outlet and hobby. Visit www.springfieldink.com to request an order.

What brought you to the Springfield Historic District?

Jim: The architecture, initially. I’m from New Hampshire and my parents used to restore old homes  up there. 100 + year homes. They bought and restored at least 10 of them, and we lived in them while they worked on them. So I have a natural affinity for the older, unique architecture and craftsmanship. The neighborhood was also extremely affordable at the time I moved in. That was…hmm…1997, I think. It’s been a while.

I was 21, living on he Southside of town, and interested in buying in the Springfield area. I would drive my little convertible through the neighborhood with the top down, looking at potential properties and just checking out what was going on in general. After a short time looking, I would get spooked and drive off in a hurry. I did this a for a while then decided it was too rough for me to buy.

I came back 5 years later and it wasn’t as bad. It wasn’t great, but it was obviously on the right track. That’s when I decided to come here.

What comes to mind when thinking about your first few years here in the neighborhood?

Well it was very different back then. I’m sure you hear that all the time, but it’s true. All the stories people tell about the neighborhood back in the day are all true.

Crack heads and prostitutes were everywhere, day and night. Boarding houses were everywhere. Drug dealers threatened to kill me. It was really, really bad.

Believe it or not, there were only two homeowners on my block for the first year I lived here. The rest were boarding houses or abandoned. And only two cars too, mine and the other homeowner’s. He and I had a system in place where I would call COJ three times a day, and he would all JSO two times a day to report all of blatant illegal stuff that was going on.

But there were some really cool memories made too.

I bought a house at 6^th & Liberty to restore. The white Victorian on the NE corner that’s sitting vacant now. I was still living on the Southside of town at the time and bought it as a total renovation project. SPAR (Springfield Preservation And Revitalization) asked me if they could use it to host a haunted house event for Halloween. The house was a mess and not livable, and I was just in the beginning stages of the attempted rehab ( I was in way over my head though, and eventually had to sell it ) so I strung up some temporary lights and we turned it into a storybook haunted house. Really creepy. We nailed it. Anyways, SPAR used a promotion like “If you think you’re scared to visit Springfield during the day, wait until you visit the haunted house at night!”

It was a big hit and a ton of people came. We tried to do it again the next year, but the city got wind of it before hand and shut it down. We never pulled any permits to host the event the first year, and they weren’t going to let it happen again. It was a great time, even though it lasted just one year.

What did your family and friends think about the move into the neighborhood?

Of course they thought I was nuts. Well, my parents actually appreciated it because they used to restore historic houses themselves, but most of my other family and friends really thought that I had lost my mind. My wife was nervous too, even though she liked the idea. Even before we got married, she was thinking about moving here, actually.

In your 13 years in the Springfield Historic District, what are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen?

Well, obviously the property values have gone way up. The city accomplished what they were trying to do on that front. Values have come back down again because of the overall market conditions, but they’ll level off sooner than later I think.

There’s a lot of kids and families in the neighborhood now too. Thirteen years ago it was almost unheard of to raise a family here. Now it’s not anything unusual. In fact, we’re swamped with at least 200 kids every Halloween. I’ve contributed to that, having two wonderful kids myself.

And our block has turned around 180 degrees. It used to be one of the worst in the area, now I like to think it’s one of the best. I mentioned before how there were only 2 cars on our block when I first moved in here….now it’s tough to find a space.

How did you know this house was “the one” for you?

I used to have a couple restaurants on Main Street, and this house was owned by one of my good customers at the time. She owned a lot of houses in the Historic District, but lived in a condo up in Fernandina Beach. One day we were talking, and she mentioned that she wanted to get a few properties off her hands. I jumped at the opportunity to buy this one, and took it off her hands for $36k as an investment property. As it turned out, here I am all these years later.

What do you enjoy about living in the Springfield Historic District now?

It’s not like anywhere else. I mentioned I lived on the Southside of town for 7 years, and during that time I didn’t get to know even one of my neighbors very well. I couldn’t have told you what their last names were. It was sad.

Now, I’m not a huge people person. My wife is the social one. But I do like the sense of community here and that so many people are involved in different things.

I like that my neighbors know my dog and I know theirs, so when one gets out we know who to call. I like that while I’m out of town, my neighbors watch after my house for me. I like that we know so many people here by name and address, and can call on them if we need anything at all. I like all the events and things to do.

Do you participate in any of the neighborhood organizations or events?

My wife does a lot of that stuff. She’s part of the Springfield Mommies Group, I think, even though our kids are getting older now. I did my run on SPAR for a few years when I first moved in. I’m a pretty low key person though, so I like that there are so many options and things going on to participate in, but I don’t necessarily want to do them all myself. I've played for the Springfield Hoodies for a few years as well; it's part of the city's adult kickball league.

Moving forward, how do you see the neighborhood evolving?

Even though the real estate market has caused major problems, I still see the neighborhood becoming that artsy and eclectic draw that most everyone wants. I think that’s what a lot of people envision. Mixed use buildings, art galleries, mom & pop businesses, etc. I see it coming.

The thing is, during the boom we priced ourselves out of all that. Asking prices for most of the commercial properties were astronomical, because everyone thought the values would just keep climbing. And small businesses just couldn’t afford those prices. So here we are with bunch of vacant storefronts on Main Street as a result. But I think it’s leveling out now and we will see what most people wanted in the first place: unique, locally owned businesses.

Do you have any advice for someone thinking about moving into the Springfield Historic District?

If you’re buying an older house in need of a lot of work, bring your tools and your money! If you buy recently renovated or new, you should be ok.

Luckily I’m pretty handy.