this downtown

block the center of activity

By

Joan Gandy

The Natchez Democrat

The center of Natchez is in revival &045;&045; the old emboldened by the new, the entrepreneurial spirit lifting off years of dusty neglect to show how proper preservation and modern development can merge successfully.

Call them pragmatic preservationists, perhaps, all the visionaries who have come before and will come after, taking a look at crumbling bricks and finding economic opportunities.

In March 2004, all eyes are on the block of North Commerce Street that joins Main and Franklin. A plaque placed more than 100 years ago in the center of the east side of that block designates it &uot;Center of the City of Natchez.&uot;

&uot;It’s creating a buzz. People are beginning to be interested in the real estate in this block,&uot; said Guy Bass, who, with partner David Browning, soon will open a restaurant on the street. &uot;And, after all, it is the center of Natchez. An old photograph showed that it was considered the center of the town.&uot;

Two buildings sharing a common wall have been under restoration for some time, but the return of Bass and Browning to Natchez after a few years in Florida gave fresh impetus to the project, funded by the building’s owner, Jim Love.

&uot;The time was right for us to move back, and the time was right for Jim to do the project,&uot; Bass said. &uot;We have been overwhelmed by the welcome back. People have been super. Now we’re home to stay.&uot;

Home to stay and ready to establish a new eatery, the two restaurateurs have a track record of success that began in 1981 with the Natchez Landing at Natchez Under-the-Hill. They are known in more recent years for Pearl Street Pasta, which they opened in 1991 and sold in 1999.

The new restaurant will be at the rear of the large building now under restoration, entered through a former carriageway on the north side and a narrower alley on the south side. &uot;The brick townhouse in back was the old carriage house,&uot; Bass said. &uot;We want to create a New Orleans kind of feeling, with dining in the courtyard and also inside. We’ll use wrought iron benches outside, fountains, brick planters. We have a lot of surprises in store for Natchez.&uot;

The project is huge. Bass oversees the work on a daily basis when Jim Love cannot be in town. &uot;This is no small undertaking. It’s 16,000 square feet of building. And we’re using all local contractors, artisans and workers, putting money back into the local economy. We feel very excited Jim is willing to put in the capital to make this investment work.&uot;

Love will open an antiques shop on the lower level of the building and have a private apartment on the second floor, where a balcony will extend across the second-floor fa?ade. Bass and Browning will occupy an apartment on the second floor of the carriage house.

Revival in the 100 block of Commerce Street can influence other restoration and stimulate more ideas for making downtown vibrant, said Edward Killelea, whose dreams for downtown revitalization have inspired some of the work going on today.

As owner with his wife, Kathryn, of the shop Different Accents, housed in the building at 511-515 Main St., he has begun to create a co-op type shop, sharing the space with the gift shop Brown Barnett Dixon’s, an art gallery owned by Jeff Morris and a stamp shop owned by Becky Morris, for example.

A second-floor apartment also is part of the building, with windows overlooking a courtyard. &uot;From the apartment upstairs, I can put in stairs down to the patio and have a private entrance for the bed-and-breakfast apartment. I’ve dug up old flagstones from the property and I will use them in some way&uot;

The courtyard in Killelea’s plans will connect with the courtyard at the new restaurant. That, Bass said, provides an excellent flow for people moving from shop to shop and restaurant to restaurant in the days to come.

Bass and Killelea both envision the block of Commerce becoming a place where people gather to eat, visit art shops, see live theater and enjoy weekend festivals and fairs.

&uot;Right now you have to go through almost a third-world-like atmosphere to get from Main to Franklin Street,&uot; Killelea said.

&uot;We need to push all the areas of downtown together where things are happening. You have the Canal Street Depot and then Main Street and Franklin Street. The way to pull the areas together is to fill in all those gaps in between. If we have more shops, galleries and restaurants, people will come. They will have dinner, see a show, walk around.&uot;

Ronald Miller, executive director of the Historic Natchez Foundation, said the Ritz Theater, looked upon by many of the Commerce Street building owners as an important anchor for the block, is safe and secure now but how it will be restored and used continues to be uncertain.

Bass would like to see dinner theater there or performances sponsored by the fine arts department of Alcorn State University. &uot;With the marquis restored and any kind of live theater there, it will be wonderful.&uot;

Miller said plans exist for structurally securing the front of the Ritz building, which is acknowledged by historic preservationists, including Miller, as an outstanding example of Art Deco architecture and a design rarity in Natchez.

&uot;The roof is gone. The floor is gone. We have to come up with the money before we can do anything else. We’ve spent $35,000 cleaning it out,&uot; Miller said. &uot;And the reason we don’t want to build a roof right now is we don’t know yet what the use of the building will be.&uot;

Ideas abound, however. &uot;We have a great dream. What we might want to do is combine the Ritz property with part of the corner property, sufficient room to have a theater complex that would include light theater, a cabaret and a movie theater.&uot;

Miller referred to a corner building owned by Walter Davis, who owns other property in the block and gets kudos from the Foundation for some of the exterior work done recently to make those buildings more attractive.

Mimi Miller, director of preservation for the Foundation, agreed with Killelea’s idea that the 100 block of Commerce will be a good link street. &uot;It is so important to have a link to pull you from Main to Franklin and from Franklin to Main.&uot;

As for the Ritz, she said the Foundation &uot;does not want to jump at selling that property as retail space until it is known whether another more significant project might take place.&uot;

Kimberly Brown, director of the Carl Small Town Center of the College of Architecture at Mississippi State University, said some amazing things can happen as a result of work in one section of a community.

&uot;It happens all the time in Chicago &045;&045; one tiny little community turns things around,&uot; Brown said.

The important word is &uot;community,&uot; as the most successful projects are not those sponsored by governments but those with grass-roots momentum and a community base. &uot;It’s critical that it happens from within people who live in the community,&uot; she said.

A city’s downtown area is important to newcomers and potential new businesses, she said. &uot;It is a great resource and should be promoted as the heartbeat of the community.&uot;

Ron Miller pointed out the opening of Planet Thailand, a Thai restaurant on the Commerce Street block, about a year ago; restoration of the building on the northeast corner of Commerce and Franklin streets; and the recent purchase by Donald Killelea, Edward’s brother, of a building on the west side of the 100 block of Commerce.

&uot;The first steps have already been taken and the momentum is growing,&uot; he said.

Donald Killelea said the purchase of a building on that block made sense to him. &uot;With the energy going on over there, I wanted a new place. I wanted to own my own building rather than rent.&uot;

He will move his Northwest Mutual Financial Network office to the building as soon as he gets the space ready, he said. &uot;And I like the challenge of fixing it up, the accomplishment of getting it done and helping to clean that area up a little.&uot;

Guy Bass said he believes the action at the center of Natchez will catch hold in other places in the city.

&uot;All the infrastructure is here. Natchez is poised on the edge and ready to take the leap to be a hub for tourism. I’m very excited about it,&uot; Bass said.

&uot;We need to make Natchez a destination and we need to provide entertainment. Someone has to provide entertainment for children. I think the casinos could pay for that &045;&045; a theme park or a children’s theater; if we’re going to market ourselves to families, we’ve got to have something for children to do.&uot;

Bass is a proponent of downtown apartments, a trend that has made a comeback in the last couple of decades and continues to grow.

&uot;Everyone who has done it, loves it,&uot; Bass said. &uot;There is so much property available downtown. It’s a great lifestyle.&uot;

Promoting downtown apartment living is a good tool for keeping people interested in the vitality of the downtown Natchez, too. &uot;We’re going full circle from the days when that used to be the norm, business downstairs and living upstairs,&uot; Bass said.

Erin Myers, owner of Sun Moon and Stars, a gift shop on the corner of Main and Commerce, has watched the progress along Commerce.

&uot;It’s a great place to be. I think the changes on Commerce will be an asset, and I’d like to see a variety of shops there,&uot; she said.

Indeed, Bass said competition is good for business. More restaurants and more shops will bring more people.

&uot;No one,&uot; he said, &uot;wants to eat at just one restaurant or shop at just one store.&uot;