SHOW DESCRIPTION

In this episode of Soul Sessions, developer duo Jason Watkins and David Pharr discuss their decades-long effort to revitalize Fondren, Jackson's creative and commercial hub. From the adaptive reuse of the historic Capri Theater to the assembly of parcels for a new 234-unit residential development, they trace the vision, risk, and community commitment behind The Block and beyond. Watkins and Pharr also preview an upcoming 2027 project they say will position Fondren as a destination for festivals, conferences and events.

TRANSCRIPT

Note: Soul Sessions is produced as a podcast first and designed to be listened to. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes the emotion and inflection meant to be conveyed by human voice. Our transcripts are created using AI and human transcribers, but may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting.

Intro

Paul
Most developers look for a sure thing. David Pharr and Jason Watkins looked at a derelict theater that had defeated every previous revival attempt and decided that was their opening. They are the developers behind The Block at Fondren, the $13 million entertainment destination that brought Jackson's only movie screen back to life alongside a bowling alley, a tiki bar, a wood-fired pizza joint, and an outdoor gathering space. Hey, it's Paul Wolf with the front row seat to conversations on culture from Jackson, Mississippi. We call our podcast Soul Sessions. It's the people, places, and events that make the City With Soul shine. On today's show, David and Jason talk about what it actually takes to bet on a neighborhood — and why, for two people who aren't planning to go anywhere, that bet only keeps getting bigger.

The Capri Theater

So I want to start off talking about a project that everyone at this point knows about or should know about in Fondren, the neighborhood that you both have put so much time and effort and energy and resource into. The Capri Theater. I think that theater was built back in the 30s, part of the Fondren strip there on the west side of State Street, and multiple revival attempts of that theater before you all got involved. So what made you think that this time could be different?

Jason
Well, that's a great question and really some further background on it — when the group I was with bought the original property on the strip, we bought everything but The Capri because somebody else owned that. And honestly we were somewhat relieved that we didn't have the Capri because it was so daunting.

We're like, well, that's somebody else's problem. We'll just do what we have. And then as fate had it, that person who owned that decided he wanted to sell, so we bit the bullet and somewhat on a wing and a prayer, bought it. And I don't know, we probably just were young and we had a lot of ambition at the time, so that's what made us think that we could do something.

Paul
Ha ha ha.

David
And it really starts with, of course, when I joined the group, it was to get involved directly in adaptive reuse in the core and participate directly in the kind of community work that I'd gotten so caught up in trying to improve Jackson.

The next decision I made was a little more dramatic. When it came time to kind of pivot my law practice, left the big firm and decided to see if there was a way to re-civilize a portion of that giant barn that had been sitting empty for 36 years with a hole in the roof and put a law office in it, which really became kind of a combination law and development office. But it sort of ushered in this period of blue sky thinking about what could happen there because people stopped by — people from three generations of experience with the building and the neighborhood — to share memories and opinions about what could happen there. It was just incredible. Actually bringing back movie exhibition was not necessarily at the top of our list to begin with, and it was kind of a winding road how we got there.

But the core rationale for why we thought it could work was that we had access to adjacent buildings and property to expand the operation to include a kitchen and offer the kind of experiential movie product that was actually growing, where the kind of traditional multiplex model was shrinking at the time. But this segment of the movie theater business that offered dine-in service was really growing at a rapid pace. Of course, this was all before COVID, so things changed in the process before we got open.

And then what Jason and I started out bringing to development work was kind of an understanding of incentives that are available for this kind of development. And the scope of The Capri offered a great deal of historic tax credits to help with the capital stack to get the project off the ground. So that was another big advantage.

The Block

Paul
Yeah, we should mention too — in case anyone doesn't realize — that The Capri is part of a broader complex called the Block, which has Highball Lanes, which is a bowling alley with a restaurant. There's a tiki bar there. There's Fondren Yard, which is a big outdoor space, a Jumbotron, concessions, and more. And then, of course, you have the Station, which has wood-fired pizzas. And just recently announced that Joe Cravens from Walker’s would be taking over food operations there.

Jason
Yeah, we couldn't be more excited about this recent change. This concept that we did — it really dovetails with your other question about The Capri — is that it was really designed to fill what we thought was a void in the sort of Jackson social and entertainment and cultural scene of having a central gathering place. If you have somebody come to town, you know, where do you go? Obviously we have museums and things like that, but like, where's the nightlife? What's the spot that you can be proud of? And we just felt like there was no place like that in Jackson. And we thought Fondren was sort of that place — ish — because it had good restaurants, but if you could be the destination place within that ish place, then that was sort of the goal.

So then we created this sort of large-scale entertainment situation, but we tried to keep it very true to the neighborhood — kept the building facades and didn't do some monolithic “Bowl-A-Rama” type name across it. We wanted it to feel like it was part of the fabric.

But we also felt like it was very important to have an authentic, chef-driven experience. And we think we're finally hitting that stride with a sort of local chef-operator who is just so attuned to what's going on in the neighborhood and has a real energy and talent. I think we're gonna see some amazing things out of him.

Investing in Your Own Backyard

Paul
You both live here in Jackson. You're not just some outside investors parachuting in to try to save the day. So how much does that shape the risks that you're willing to actually take?

Jason
For me it just removes the entire governor off of the risk. I've really kind of put it all out there for the neighborhood, for better or for worse. So as Fondren goes, I go. As Fondren dies, I will probably die. Yeah.

David
Yeah, when you're not planning to go anywhere, all the decisions you make just get more intense.

Paul
It's your backyard, right?

David
Yep. Yep. And, like I said before, I really was motivated to get into this work because of my love for Jackson. That is the driving interest.

The Fondren Historic Business District

Paul
We mentioned tax credits earlier, and I know that you all paid for the application and the work required to get the downtown Fondren Historic Business District on the National Register of Historic Places. What was the thinking behind that?

Jason
Part of what went into this process was really driven by our reevaluation of what we should do on the strip altogether. So we considered early on, when we first acquired it, whether we should demo some buildings and try to expand and give some more of a vertical feel.

And from feedback from the neighborhood, we just didn't feel like that was right. As we reevaluated, we ultimately decided to lean into the existing architecture and feel. And so that made it pretty simple that that needed to be continued and replicated throughout the neighborhood. With encouragement from Archives & History to sort of be the sponsor for this, we were convinced that that would enable further projects by having it as a historic district — which enables historic tax credits and other benefits — that it would not only help our project as we were trying to kind of get off the ground, but other projects that sort of buttress what we were doing. It just made a lot of sense for unselfish reasons, but also just for neighborhood purposes.

David
The theater is unique in that it's also a landmark — a state-designated landmark. But in order to get the full benefit of the incentives, it needed to be a landmark inside a historic district. So that was the idea behind it.

Paul
And has that designation — the National Register — helped to shape what the neighborhood is going to look like and feel like for the future?

Jason
Absolutely. The designation does not restrict people from doing something to their building. So if you wanted to tear a building down and put something up, you can. It's not like a true historic district like Belhaven has, for example. But if you want to use historic tax credits to improve your project, this makes all the difference in the world. And we can talk about this more later, but there's a future project that David and I are working on that will be pretty impactful — that would not be possible without this. There are other buildings that I don't know if anybody else has done what we've done so far in terms of using credits to improve, but there are several properties that you can see will ultimately benefit from it — whether it's a grocery store or a strip mall or what have you.

The Parking Garage

Paul
The 500-space parking garage that is right behind the Fondren Strip there at the Block and your developments — that was a Hinds County project, but you all helped pull that together. So what does that say for the benefit of a public-private partnership where things are actually aligned for the benefit of everyone involved?

David
Yeah, we're super proud and excited that that came together. And I think it really is one of the hallmarks of improving alignment between city, county, and state in trying to reverse some of these population trends. And we were just kind of fortunate that we came to it after years of discussion about the need for improved parking in Fondren.
There were differences of opinion about where it could be located, but we ended up with the perfect spot because it sits kind of lower from the elevation on State Street and it just more or less disappears. It does stick up a little higher than we thought it would in concept, but it really is a perfect location. We discovered over time that that had been a fairly popular centralized spot for parking at peak times in the neighborhood over the decades because the theater needed a lot of parking. And so when it wasn't full of moviegoers, that's kind of where you would park. There was an alleyway in the middle of the strip that gave kind of easy access from back there — that's since been closed because one of the buildings expanded into it — but it really has been a great project. We're just grateful that the elected officials saw the benefit of investing that way. We didn't create the model or the statute that was used for it, but we're happy that everybody saw the benefit of using it there.

Jason
I mean, what was interesting is that you sort of are beaten down into a philosophy of, well, if you're in Jackson, you don't even need to bother asking the state for any help. And that was just simply not the case, as we learned — the state was willing to help. They just wanted to see a tangible outcome that they could trust. And we created a pretty unique partnership between MDA and the Hinds County Board of Supervisors and then of course the private development, and we were able to build it successfully and now it's generating revenue and is going to facilitate more development.

Community Foundation and Civic Work

Paul
David, you've been on the board for the Community Foundation for Mississippi and involved in broader civic work. So how does that perspective actually shape the way you approach a project like this? Is it different from a developer who's purely focused on getting a return on their investment?

David
Well, I find the motivations in both contexts to be very harmonious. And maybe that's because I come to this work with a community focus. Maybe it's just the nature of where Jackson is in this moment. But all of these stakeholders are really working toward the same goal of taking what we have, improving quality of life for existing citizens, and making the city more attractive for people to move here. I think that's kind of widely acknowledged to be our biggest challenge in Jackson right now. We've made good progress on our infrastructure crisis, but everybody agrees we need more people. We went through too many years of losing people and we've got to get more people here.
The Community Foundation was extremely rewarding — there is not another group that I can think of that ties philanthropic capital together with smart planning and with a priority to come alongside our elected leadership to do things that are universally accepted as positive for all. There are other groups working in different niches, including one that is on the horizon for Fondren that's going to focus on blight.

People assume that Fondren is great and doesn't need any help, but there are certainly areas of the neighborhood that are very successful — we've seen some progress in the commercial district — but West Fondren has got a serious blight issue that it's fighting. So it's time to get more aggressive about that in the neighborhood, and I'm excited that that's starting to happen.

The neighborhood-wide strategic planning process work that was done by Fondren Renaissance called Fondren Forward is going to be bearing fruit for a long time.

The Flats at Fondren

Paul
You mentioned the need to bring more people back to Jackson, more residents. And so one of the newest projects that's right there at your back door at the Block is the Flats at Fondren from Arlington Properties. The two of you spent years quietly assembling the parcels that they needed to build these residential units. How do you hold a vision like that together across that kind of timeline?

Jason
Yeah. Pure stubbornness is the best explanation for that. We felt very strongly — and as David just articulated well — that Fondren needs to expand. First of all, it needs better housing stock, it needs more residents, and it needs to also expand beyond the areas that have just been served by sort of Fondren Renaissance. So this starts to edge it a little bit further west and get into the area that hasn't enjoyed it. And it's not gentrification — it's just bringing some much-needed resource to an area that's underserved. And hopefully that can spread out.

I think there are ten properties that were sort of repurposed for this — some of which had turned into a squatter's home, and there were maybe a handful of people who lived in the others. And that's going to be 234 units now of Class A-plus housing stock. This is going to be a 50-year-plus development. It's going to leave a really nice impression on the area and going to bring a lot of professionals who otherwise can't be in the area, and also people who just want to elevate where they're living who are already in the area, to have a nice place to live.

What's Next

Paul
I've heard there's something else in the works and that maybe you can't talk about it yet, but is there anything that you might tease out about future projects that the two of you have on the plate?

Jason
Yes, we do have another — what we consider to be a large project. And I think it is large by any fine standards. We can't identify where, but we can identify that it'll be substantial, should bring a lot more residents — or a lot more people, I should say — to the neighborhood, to the downtown Fondren area. And it's going to be a 2027 project. I'm not sure how much more I can say other than that — construction on it we believe will start no later than the beginning of 2027 and should be complete by the end of 2027.

David
It is exciting that it's coming together as well as it is because the fourth quarter is also when we're expecting to see the new hotel and the new apartments open. So it's like becoming a real peak moment for the neighborhood.

Jason
Components of what this project will be are going to — we hope — foster Fondren as more of a destination for festivals and conferences and events that couldn't otherwise be in Jackson because there aren't enough resources right now to accommodate people. And this would help fit that bill when it complements the other things — when you've got breakout space at Duling, you've got a theater space that can be used for presentations at the Capri, and now hotel spaces and all kinds of fun dining options. So you really are able to land not the huge conventions, but the festivals, the food and wine events —

David
A miniature South by Southwest, you know — live music, movies, speaker content, people walking around with hang tags. When I was on the FRF Board, I spent a lot of time pushing for creation of the business improvement district and trying to figure that out. You know, what's the future of the neighborhood festival here? We were kind of going through a lot of changes with the things that are regularly on the calendar, and the missing piece was the ability for people to stay in the neighborhood.
And when I said before "the hotel and apartments," I was referring to the Hampton Inn, which is adjacent to the Station. And that's a Wealth Hospitality project — Chico Patel, 110 rooms — and it's expected to be open by the end of next year, as well as the apartments.

Fondren in Five Years

Paul
Well, this ties perfectly into my last question, and that is: what does Fondren look like in your mind five years from now?

Jason
Yeah, I mean, I think you're looking at a place that's got the downtown Fondren particularly — you know — double, triple the density and population. No more sleepy Sundays or Mondays. You've got people walking around to the restaurants, you've got more of the 24/7 feel. Well, maybe not 24. But you definitely have more of the vibrancy that — what I say often is — you see it in pockets. You know, at times you really get that, "my gosh, like this is such a cool neighborhood, there's so much vibrancy." But that's not all the time. And I think you're going to start seeing it all the time — you're going to have just people on every corner walking around, doing commerce.

David
I think you'll see noticeable improvement in the areas that are still showing some blight and concern. And with any luck, there'll be a clear path for resolving the Eubanks Creek issues that the larger neighborhood is having, and better connectivity for bicycling and pedestrian infrastructure. I think we have some real gems in the bordering residential areas all the way down Old Canton, North State, and now Meadowbrook. And I work on the museum trail project as well. I'd love to see Fondren get better connected to the citywide network and grow that network across the city, obviously. But I think in five years, we'll understand what that looks like a lot better than we do now.

Outro

That is David Pharr and Jason Watkins, whose story is about what the long game looks like when it's played by people with real skin in the game. From a reluctant decision to take on a theater nobody else could save, to years of quietly assembling land parcels for 234 new apartments, to a future project they can't fully talk about yet — every move has been a deeper bet on the same neighborhood. David described the vision as something like a miniature South by Southwest: live music, movies, festivals, and foot traffic not as a pocket moment on a Friday night, but as the everyday texture of Fondren. If you've spent any time on that strip lately, you know they're not as far off as that might sound. We'll have links in our show notes to The Block at Fondren and everything David and Jason are building at visitjackson.com/soulsessions.

This podcast is produced by Visit Jackson, the destination organization for Mississippi's capital city. Our executive producers are Jonathan Pettus and Dr. Ricky Thigpen, and I'm our managing editor. There's always something great going on in Jackson, and we keep up with it at visitjackson.com.

I'm Paul Wolf, and you've been listening to Soul Sessions.

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