LEMONADE FROM LEMONS
Over the years, defining Tallahassee’s downtown has evolved to include several blocks to the north of the Capitol, the new Cascades Park, a redeveloped Gaines Street, the All Saints neighborhood, CollegeTown, Kleman Plaza and FSU’s to-bebuilt Arena District. When lobbyists talk about choice real estate, though, there’s what Southern Strategies’ Bradshaw had dubbed the downtown “golden block.” Actually, it’s more like two blocks in the shadow of the Capitol building, bounded by Park Avenue and Pensacola Street to the north and south, and Monroe and Adams streets to the east and west. While a prestige address impresses, it’s actually the practicalities that make this location so ideal. “There’s a real premium in being in this two-block area,” he said. “Once you head north of Park, when you’re wearing a light wool suit, in May, you’re going to be sweating like a pig by the time you hit
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the Capitol.” Locate across Monroe Street and the terrain slopes downhill. “And you don’t want to walk uphill. You’re going to have good thigh development by the time you get to the Capitol.” Although its Adams Street home office is “golden,” Southern Strategies has ventured more into sterling silver territory with its latest acquisition, a pair of College Avenue storefronts that have been repurposed into restaurant, office and condo space and dubbed College Station. When the lobbying firm acquired the properties for $950,000 in September 2014, the restaurant space was already leased and their plans were to develop the rest in the future. “The thought process was that space doesn’t come available in this corridor very often and so that was an opportunity,” Bradshaw said. “We’ve got four sub-state offices and those guys travel to Tallahassee for committee weeks and during the session. We had been renting condos around town (and) wanted a dedicated residential space for them. We saw it as sort of a mixed-use project where you could lease part of it for retail/commercial as restaurants and use part of it for office and residential.” An early February fire in the restaurant caused $130,000 worth of damage and it shut down for good two weeks later. The firm decided to accelerate its plans and renovate the property while there was no restaurant tenant. “It was a good opportunity for us to kind of front load some money into it and do everything at once,” said Managing Partner Chris Dudley, who took the lead on the $1.2 million renovation. “The work upstairs would have been disruptive to the restaurant down below … This was an opportunity to kind of shut everything down to get the condo and the office upstairs finished.” Bradshaw said that within weeks of the shutdown, they had four letters of intent from restaurateurs wanting to lease the space. It was ultimately offered to Roger Unger, who has two other eateries two blocks away in the heart of downtown, Jasmine Café and Brewd Awakening. Opened in September, his latest restaurant concept is The Southern Public House. Wood walls, subway tile, mason jars and a collection of funky lighting fixtures give a Steampunk vibe to the gastropub that offers 20 taps and a locally sourced menu of burgers, salads and Southern-style specialties for lunch and dinner. A huge deck, popular in the restaurant’s previous incarnations as Po Boy’s and Tucker Duke’s, was upgraded to include a section that can be curtained off and air conditioned. Unger also plans develop the space next door to The Southern as a noodle bar restaurant.
The street-side look of the buildings was overhauled with the help of a $50,000 matching façade improvement grant from the Community Redevelopment Agency. The look changes throughout the day as a grid-like pattern of shadows from grated metal balconies moves across the stucco face of the building, painted in color blocks of Army green, rich brown, natural white and pewter. Upstairs, a suite of three large offices fill with natural light shining through large windows and all-glass doors and walls. The residential portion includes three bedrooms, each with a private bath, as well as a full kitchen and large living room area that can also be used as an entertainment venue. Fire codes required a stair tower be built alongside the building, which Dudley suggested be carried all the way to the top of the building. “I thought we could do New York City-esque rooftop events,” he said. “We can put some tables and chairs and plants up there and make it a livable outdoor space which I think we’ll get a lot of use out of.” Dudley says he considers SSG’s project just one in lobbyists’ quest to rework the downtown landscape. “This next generation of lobbyists at a lot of different firms, they want to own a building. They want to have something that’s theirs,” he said. “That’s a good trend that’s going to encourage them to deploy their capital into great spaces downtown that they put money into and can pass along to their kids. I think our College Station project is something we’re going to have for a long, long time. It’s a beautiful building.”
FROM ANTIQUE TO MODERN
When he bought the Lively House in 1996 for his lobbying firm’s headquarters, Brian Ballard was something of a trendsetter. Tallahassee’s Park Avenue was lined with stately manses, many dating back to the early 1900s and earlier, in desperate need of updating and repair. Listed on the National Historic Register, rules and standards dictated how Ballard’s acquisition could be renovated. It was a money pit. Ballard did a first-class job, though, turning the house into a Colonial Revival masterpiece: a 10,000 square-foot office on four levels that oozes history and Southern elegance. “I love this building. I would never leave if we didn’t have space issues,” he said. “It’s very functional (and) the staff loves working here. There’s a reason it’s 100-some-odd years old. Every inch works.” Over the years, other businesses did the same. Today, most of the homes along Park Avenue have been renovated, providing a beautiful, upgraded frame to downtown’s Chain of Parks.
PHOTOS: Mary Beth Tyson
Warren Husband and Andy Palmer have window views, a definite downgrade from the previous location. But each office includes personal touches. Liby-Schoonover’s has a framed map of Florida that is actually a ’70s-era silk scarf that belonged to her grandmother, Greene’s looks like a page from Real Simple magazine and Greg Black’s includes a stuffed coyote. There are also two fully equipped offices for visiting guests. The office’s focal point, though, is what Liby-Schoonover calls the “entertainment” space. “This is a really cool space,” she said. “We do everything from our firm weekly meetings to conference calls. We have full audio-visual so we can project up a client Skype session. If we’re doing a late-night strategy session, maybe we turn on the end of an FSU game.” The conference table is actually four tables that can be separated, creating space to easily seat 24 people for a meal. To the left is a large niche that includes a bar, catering area and cabinets and a sunny nook with one of the office’s strategically placed coffee stations (no need to interrupt a meeting to get to the coffeemaker or drag a client to the kitchen). But one of her favorite spots is the balcony overlooking South Monroe Street. Even before office construction began, firm members and their families enjoyed a prime view of the Springtime Tallahassee parade. And the upcoming family-friendly Christmas party is set for the night of the city’s holiday parade and winter festival. “The balcony almost looks residential,” she says. “I think its very functional. You can catch up on a few issues with a client or take a call out here. You don’t need a big ol’ conference table.”