 A warehouse district transformed. That's the vision behind the Phoenix Art and Innovation District which heads into the first phase of construction on two properties in North Springfield. Joining us now by phone is Tony Cho, managing partner of Phoenix Jacks. Tony, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. So efforts to revitalize the Phoenix community and Jacksonville date back a number of years. I think the first Phoenix Rising Festival was in maybe 2016 or 17 and that was started by Jacksonville entrepreneur Kristie Frazier, former owner of the Pearl and Art Bar and other things. How has the project evolved since that time? Wow, it's been a really awesome journey, you know, being part of this evolution of this district and this neighborhood within Springfield and the east side and Main Street corridor. And what I love about it is the history, you know, and also the symbology of being the Phoenix rising from the ashes and this neighborhood being the area where displaced folks in the turn of the century from the fire of 1901 started relocating. So it has this really symbolic connection to the history of Jacksonville and it's really wonderful to see that the arts are playing a role of revitalizing this district and starting with Kristie Frazier, the original artist, entrepreneur founder, and then us coming in about three years ago, four years ago to kind of uplift the vision and really take it to the next level. And so for people who haven't been out to Phoenix or haven't been out lately, the area that you are working on is recognizable. There's all of this colorful graffiti that wraps around these warehouses, includes the work of some local legend muralists like Sean Thurston. And it's similar in that way to the Winwood Arts District in Miami, which your organization, the Future of Cities, helped create. Well, actually, my involvement in Winwood predated my launch of the Future of Cities platform. It was me as kind of one of the original, you know, creatives that in real estate people that started investing in brokering deals. And I was one of the co-founders of the Winwood Arts District, the Business Improvement District. And so I had started working in that area in the early 2000s and had been, you know, very involved in the renaissance of the area and connecting artists and street artists with landlords and working on the rezoning of the whole district, which garnered international kind of accolades for really progressive urban rezoning. It was called the Winwood Neighborhood Revitalization District, the NRD. You now see kind of the results of that effort, which most of the new construction buildings have really highly curated street art integrated into the new build as well as the original historic buildings and warehouses and industrial. And when I saw this area, it had reminiscence of it. But what I like about it now more is that it's distinctly Jacksonville. You know, Phoenix is a brand that was born and bred in Jacksonville. It has a mythology, has an ethos. It has an energy and a grittiness that I think is unique to Jacksonville and I think is something that is really exciting for Jacksonville. So what is the overall scope of the project as you envision it? So the project has multiple phases and we're kind of completing the acquisition and entitlement phase, which is assembling the properties. So we have eight and a half contiguous acres from Main Street to Liberty Street. We own about eight buildings, about 240,000 square feet of industrial, of which we are going to adaptively repurpose 125,000 interior, 48,000 exterior into a walkable, mixed-use entertainment arts and innovation area with a lot of public and open space. And the Emerald Trail goes right through the middle of the project. So there'll be multiple kind of green corridors within the project that will ultimately have a lot of edible landscape. And we're turning a food desert into a food forest. And how are you, what are the elements of the funding for this? I know that the initial work is being funded through a $7 million loan from LISC, which is the Local Initiative Support Corporation. That happened in early December? Yeah, so we're really happy that we were able to close alone with LISC during this very difficult kind of capital markets and high interest rate climate. And it's a $7 million facility. We closed on $4 million of it. We'll close on the other $3 million when we have permit in hand for the second building, which is the first building is called the Emerald Station. And it's a beautiful, about 20,000 square foot building that's going to have a gorgeous event space, indoor, outdoor experience, co-working meeting spaces, smaller offices, event space, and it'll be our community center. And we're calling it the Emerald Station because it's on the Emerald Trail, and it will be fronting the back of it. And then the second building where our first food and beverage awesome local tenants are Naked Kitchen is going to go in the Liberty Building, which will be at the corner of Liberty and the west side of the east side of the project. And so that will probably commence construction in January or February, as we finalize our permit there. And that's about another 20,000 square feet, that'll have artists, studios, it'll have retail, it'll have creative office space. And it really starts to activate that promenade in the center where we've been doing the flee for all marketplaces once a month food trucks and container experiences. We'll go in our next project, which is called the Market on Market, which is a pop up kind of urban oasis, where you'll be able to have a community garden and different businesses within there that are incubating kind of the culture of the neighborhood. And the idea is to create a circular community, where we don't have any national or credit brands, at least for the beginning incubation part of the project. So we can really keep it local and invest back in the community. And we strongly believe that the best form of economic development is investing in small, local craft, artisan businesses within the area. And so our first food and beverage tenant, Naked Kitchen is from a local Springfield based culinary couple and team. And it's really exciting. And they have a special kind of menu. I mean, it really is all grown sourced locally, made fresh is kind of their big deal. And they have a really exceptionally talented chef. Absolutely. Yeah, their philosophy is conscious food. So what I like about it, it's really locally sourced. They work with a lot of farms. So it's kind of like farm to fork, if you will, in a way, and it's just more conscious. So it's healthy. But it's also not extreme. It's just completely aligned with the vision of the future of cities, Phoenix Arts and Innovation District. Doc, a little bit about future of cities. You're the CEO and founder of Future of Cities. What is the mission? Future of Cities is a multi pronged platform which aims to impact the lives of a billion people through innovation and the built environment. And so it's a big lofty platform goal and being somebody who's worked in kind of neighborhood and city building and place making for the last, you know, almost 20 years in South Florida, and growing up in community in central Florida as a native Floridian, you know, community and nature and food has been kind of at the center of everything that we've done in our various different projects. And so Future of Cities has a think tank, which is open sourcing a new sustainable development framework called regenerative place making, which has 11 principles, and really kind of a benchmark or a blueprint on how to co design regenerative equitable, inclusive neighborhoods and cities of the future. There's a real estate arm of this, you know, that aims to implement ESG and impact strategies within community building, city building. Explain ESG. Environmental social governance metrics. So a lot of big companies need it, you know, it's kind of the precursor of corporate social responsibility. And so ESG really means kind of what's your environmental impact? What's in footprint? And what's your social impact and footprint within, you know, the projects that you do? And in Miami, we have a Future of Cities Climate Innovation Hub, which is a demonstration project of a neighborhood community center, you know, office space, event space, community garden, working a lot with the little Haiti community, and the Caribbean neighborhood that's there, doing different workshops, dance and financial literacy. And similarly in Jacksonville, you know, particularly with our Emerald Station, that will be the community hub, if you will, for the whole, hopefully the Springfield district and for Jacksonville at large, all around equity, inclusion, innovation, arts and culture within the entire city. Hopefully this will be a hub for that type of activity. So they become living laboratories, you know, so all of our projects within the Future of Cities are demonstration, demonstration projects for a new way of developing, co-creating, co-designing and implementing community projects, you know, development. And really, we're aiming to leave this community way better off than when we came and when we arrived. And we know that there's going to be a lot of increased values in the neighborhood. There already was before we started investing in Springfield, historic Springfield with gentrification that happens with that. And what we hope to do is being able to mitigate the negative consequences of urban renewal and revitalization by including the community in as much as possible in that process, you know, building more affordable housing than exists today. So we create more equity through community, through education, through the arts, through grants, and through a lot of public-private partnerships. And you noted the Emerald Trail is a part of this, a component of it is, and for people who don't remember, this is going to be this walkable, bikeable trail that connects all of Jacksonville. Is that key to the kind of driving business and interest in that area? How do you anticipate most people will be coming to Phoenix? You know, I think that people will come from all over. And I think it will ultimately, you know, I mean, it will, it will first serve the local community, Springfield, and Street, downtown Jacksonville. And then I think that it will also get a lot of people, you know, from the beach and from other neighborhoods to drive in for special events and just spending kind of the evening, you know, or the day to walk around, see the murals, you know, go to the different restaurants and the experiences there. But I think that a lot of people, hopefully within the next three, five, seven years, there will be connectivity through the Emerald Trail for people to bike there, to jog there, and for people to connect in neighboring communities. And I wouldn't say that the Emerald Trail was the only reason that we came to the area, but it certainly was a very big driver on us being excited about coming there. And we are, you know, we've met with Groundworks Jax a number of times and working on accelerating the design of this, this particular segment and accelerating the implementation because we feel it's going to be catalytic for not only for Springfield, but for all of Jacksonville. Where can people learn more about the Phoenix Jax project? So you can go to phxjax.com, but I would suggest following us on Instagram at the same handle at Phoenix Jax at phxjax. I've been speaking with Tony Cho about his project Phoenix Jax. Thanks, Tony, for being here. Thank you so much. It's been a real honor and a pleasure and looking forward to more conversations. Same here.