South Shall Rise Again?

How South Street is trying to save itself from itself.

by A.D. Amorosi

Evan M. Lopez WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY: Some of South Street's shuttered stores will soon double as art galleries.

Last week I and a friend who works on South Street took a drive down the length of it.

Certainly, I knew there were empty storefronts. That's why this story's in front of you now. Another business will drop like a fly before we turn onto Bainbridge, another by the time you turn the page.

My friend's point was how many. We lost count after 16 between Fourth and Eighth.

South Street is broken.

Yet, as bad as it seems, there's hope. South Street is trying to save itself from itself.

While seeds of the reformation go back to 2003, signs of a new South Street started to appear between November 2008 and January 2009. That's when a few different groups converged to lift the street once loved by hippies, punks, Rocky Horror freaks and fans of The Roots (back when Scott Storch played keys at their South and Passyunk gigs).

An unofficial klatch of area restaurant owners, organized by La Fourno's Al Grafstrom, sought to bring aid and information to businesses in danger of shuttering. When Michael Untermeyer (a Headhouse building owner who ran for sheriff) became the head of the South Street Headhouse District (SSHHD) in January, he brought Grafstrom on as a board member. The plan was to run a less self-serving district.

At the same time, developer Howard Lander persuaded fellow real estate owners Mike Axelrod (whose properties are agented by Steve Giannascoli) and Michael Samschick to offer their empty storefronts to Philly's arts organizations and provoked two of South Street's guiding lights — Copabanana's Bill Curry and Eye's Gallery's Julia Zagar — to make sure it happened. They received 200-plus applicants for the seven available stores — now all assigned.

The first empty space at 734 South is being filled this week by Joel Spivak's South Street Museum and the Dumpster Divers. By the ides of March at least three more empties will be filled. And by Easter, Curry hopes his idea for a Performance Arts Center at 117-119 will be ready to roar. "It was a mafia nightclub eons ago," says Curry. "If Michael doesn't rent it within the month it looks like I'll have control of it as a center for music, dance, theater and poetry."

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

Arts and enterprise shake hands in a bold new era: Breaks for those struggling to pay their rent. Menu prices lowered at quality restaurants. Great incentives offered to unique boutique businesses and smaller chain-store operations. Realtors and business people rebuilding and bettering their heralded block beyond the usual bickering. Everyone geared to keeping storefronts filled and attractive rather than barren.

As an insurgent during South Street's first renaissance in the 1970s, Curry knows where the bodies are buried. He believes he knows what SSHHD should have been doing all along to make this street a contender for cool shops and hipster gentrification a la NoLibs.

But Curry isn't here to kvetch. He wants to celebrate. "This South Street Headhouse District is finally coming around to seeing the need for the street to recapture its artistic flavor," says Curry of what he views as the district's new membership and zealous vibe. That zeal is contagious. "The major landlords know that during the economic meltdown they need to make the street attractive and not have empty stores," says Curry.

Like Curry, Grafstrom understands the block's need for great art and cool businesses.

"Whether you're looking to open a business or have a meal, if your first South Street experience is closed stores and boarded windows, that's not inviting," says Grafstrom. He's owned La Fourno for five years and was a business real estate consultant before that. His ultimate goal is to make South into an enterprise zone of arts spaces, specialty boutiques and smart restaurants.

Does he want a mix of tony restaurants and quality small-chain operators? He does. Grafstrom wants the same mix in boutiques. "I like having a Subway along with Supper, Zot and Salt + Pepper," says Grafstrom. The Subway at Sixth and South just closed, but you see his point. "We want to create a street where unique concepts and chains can operate and thrive with a mosaic of visitors — young, old, families — these businesses can appeal to."

Grafstrom is pushing an agenda of sustenance. In his mind the SSHHD's duty is to help businesses sustain through a lousy economy. Having existing restaurants and retailers offer fine product for decent prices is one way. Having landlords offer deals to those struggling is another. "A lot of these guys don't know how to pivot when an economy changes, up or down," says Grafstrom. "The district has to focus its resources as would a commerce organization — to identify problems that could potentially lead to them closing and find creative solutions so that they could stay."

Grafstrom is also pushing the district to articulate value propositions to national chains and local retailers. It worked for Old City, kept fresh by an influx of good new boutiques in recent years. "We're doing the spade work, but not fast enough," he says.

Urgency is an emergency is Grafstrom's mind.

He'd like to help currently troubled businesses by putting them together with key stakeholders like finance people and realtors to renegotiate leases, get better credit terms and get better deals with vendors. Plus the national and local retailers and restaurateurs must know that South Street will work with newcomers so that they're not getting killed with rent. "Smart good real estate guys are out there," says Grafstrom. "Look at Harold Lander."

"It's not just me," says South Street real estate developer Lander. "It can't be."

Though he came up with the idea of opening empty storefronts to local art organizations, Lander claims that Giannascoli has, of late, spearheaded the abatements and the cheapening of rents. "Without his help it wouldn't be working — without everybody's help really."

It's about the haves picking up the tab, to an extent, for the have-nots.

Lander loves the arts and knows that all great urban environments turn on the axis of their arts organizations. He believes this influx of local artisans to the free storefronts can change the neighborhood and make it exciting again. "We don't have enough art in our neighborhood, not in the storefronts, not in terms of public art. Opening these storefronts for free gives me hope that some of the organizations will do so well they'll be there forever."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)