Jackson Jambalaya

Doesn't seem like as big a deal as the Sheffield Homeowners are making it out to be. That building is currently a dilapidated daycare. Wouldn't a professional office look better?

Retired old people don't really have a lot to do except get mad about stuff.

Don't live on Sheffield, but it appears to me that this us a practical and reasonable change. Currently a day care, changing to a professional office. Not sure why one would want an office there because of the school traffic twice a day but I'm sure that's factored into the investment.

Appears to be a case of a homeowner assn just being against any thing -typical of the folks who appoint themselves as neighborhood czars.

That area is aging and there's no getting around that. Seems short sighted to choose a day care in a decaying structure as a neighbor in lieu of a commercial development for a professional office building. If they want to keep it purely residential, shouldn't they buy the lot, put a restriction on the use of the land, then sell it as a residence?

A 40 person chemical dependency rehab facility right amongst houses and school? Hell yeah I'd be fighting that and I don't even live in NE Jackson. That's not a professional use office in any stretch of the imagination.

Here's the full story... First, the "daycare" has not been open for several years so right now the property is simply an empty house. However, when it was approved for use as a daycare many years ago - from a zoning perspective - it was granted a special exception for only that property for only that use (as opposed to simply residential). So, the homeowners knew what would be there at that one property - either a daycare or a residence. Mr. Reeves wants to change the zoning from a special exception for a daycare to a general commercial property designation. Why is that a big deal??? Because,the general commercial zoning designation runs with the land. So, while good Mr. Reeves may only plan on putting an office there right now, he might change his mind later and sell the property (likely), and the commercial property designation would allow the new owner to put up any kind of commercial "thing" they wanted, be it a nail salon, pawn shop, or God knows what else...

I live in the neighborhood, and we want it to stay as a residential neighborhood. The problem with changing the designation to commercial is that it runs with the land. So, we the homeowners are stuck with it forever..

Odd that businessman Reeves would effort to piss off one of the dwindling number of Jackson neighborhoods that still produces disposable income. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

Is that...is that Comic Sans font at the top of the zoning application? Sweet merciful. What have we become?

I think the home owners around this corner need to be worried about a lot more than zoning. The area looks like Ellis Avenue and the demographics have changed and not for the good. Jackson Academy Board will never never recover the investment. Not to many years down the road JA may be the first black academy in the state. The Board members are total fools.

Agree with @ 9:44 AM. Reeves is a nice guy, but if he decides to sell the business one day, the the next person who buys it can turn it into whatever. As someone who also lives in the area I don't want to see another "ALFA house" occur.

9:43, you are mixing up two different applications. Look at the address.

The statement of intent indicates the use will be for a "Professional Office"
and that it will be low intensity but the document indicates a residential rehabilitative facility for 40 females with chemical dependency issues - meaning crack, meth, flacka etc. That doesn't sound to low intensity to me. Why the contradiction between the statement of intent and the actual purpose...... probably because most folks are not going to actually read the document. Not the best "business" to have across the street from a school and next to a park....

another example of mississippis economic growth. housing and wet-nursing stinking junkies off of a federal grant in a residential neighborhood . that is what people in mississippi see as economic development. if those junkies need to dry out, put em on a farm in the delta at the business end of a cotton sack. i guess this is the only type"industry" the republican party can bring to mississippi.

You didn't put my comment regarding JA's Board on your Blog---WHY ??
Was I telling the truth or not !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I spoke to Mr. Reeves and he wants it for a professional office, and that it should be in my opinion. No mention at all about a treatment center. It would be great for the parents of JA children to have a dentist, or specifically an orthodontist or a dermatologist directly across the street for the school. Any professional use of this property will be better than letting it decay and fall into disrepair like other vacant property in Jackson. Wake up Jackson, for you have an opportunity to keep the property occupied, and this will be beneficial to the neighborhood!!!

Go on Backpage.com and see how many "office spaces" are being used for other stuff. and it ain't gettin yo teeth cleaned

Funny that the Wee Care building had been an eyesore "holding back" the neighborhood from an aesthetic standpoint for years (according to the neighborhood) - and now that someone wants to clean it up they're all revolting.

Some people can't wait to be offended.

9:43, 10:17 and 10:24, please read the relevant document (it begins at page 17), before spouting off. The Sheffield application has nothing to do with a CDU.

do you people out there in JJ land know what a federal grant is???? that where the federal government GIVES FREE MONEY to places like harbor house . this is taxpayer $$$$. harbor house doesn't pay it back. a dry-out clinic works like a hotel. it only makes money if the rooms are full. junkies don't have the $$$ to pay for drying out. so harbor house has to get it from the government. this is a example of how taxpayers and property owners in the sheffield drive neighborhood PAY FOR THE PRIVLEDGE of having their property values destroyed.

"demographics have changed and not for the good. . . . Not to many years down the road JA may be the first black academy in the state."

And with that, you've told us everything we need to know about you.

@ first 11:02 - Thank you for trying to straighten these folks out.

@ second 11:02 - The Harbor House application has nothing to do with the subject property at the corner of Sheffield and Ridgewood. The Harbor House application is for a property on Bounds St in zip code 39272.

Read. Understand.Simmer down. Woo-saaa.

This is the applicant Brad Reeves and I wanted to clarify a few things that were brought to my attention. First, the chemical dependency center is a separate zoning request by someone else and it would be located on Frontage Road from what I can tell. My sole intention was to improve a dilapidated building on Ridgewood Road that was has been vacant for at least 3 years. I am a lifelong Jacksonian, graduate of Jackson Academy and my children attend Jackson Academy. The zoning request for the property is C-1A Restricted Commercial District, which is the most restrictive commercial classification in the City of Jackson's zoning code. I'm willing to discuss this with anyone who wants to call (601 214-9863) or e-mail me (bradmreeves@gmail.com). My intent in purchasing this property was to remove an eyesore across from Jackson Academy and replace it with first class office space that I plan to use. I have been working with Cannizaro Cawthorn Davis, the architects for Jackson Academy, and our plan is to renovate the interior and facade while maintaining the building's residential appearance in order to preserve the character of the Sheffield residential area. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions,
Brad Reeves

You people who dream of a 'professional office building' are blinded by visions of Marcus Welby on one end of the building and Perry Mason on the other.

More likely the professions would be Tarot
Card Reader, Masseuse, Acupuncturist, Palm-Reader, Tattoo artist and bail bondsman. And alternatively, a casual or day-laborer employment business that would attract every derelict and transient not already working a shift at the corner of Lakeland and 55.

Not a developer on this planet is the least bit interested in being a 'good neighbor', contributing to the hood or developing something that fits the character and charm of a neighborhood.

Seems like a good idea as long as the zoning restricts to office use.

Give this man a chance. He is trying to help the area not hurt it. He is a local who knows the history of the area not some outsider with purely profit motives. If he screws up yall can run him out of town like the Stephens. If/when he sells it down the line JA can scoop it up and the renovations will have already been done for office space.

Its not like he is trying to build a McMansion which is completely out of character with the neighborhood a block from the school. That would be something worth fighting over.

The breadth of the JJ audience too often results in reading comprehension being a waste product.

Brad, thanks for reinvesting in our area. I would love to see a professional office building there, it would be a great improvement over what is there now. I cannot imagine why anyone would oppose this, it's not like that parcel is every going to be reconstructed into residential given the busy intersection. Might as well have a vested member of the community redevelop it into nice offices. You see this type of use immediately adjacent to neighborhoods in Madison on Old Canton Road north of Madison Airport. Same exact thing, looks and works fine up there. Keep up the good work!

11:05, What's wrong? Did I hit a nerve? I told the truth and you know it. There are thousands of folks that will agree with me. JA is in the "HOOD" and you can not pretend it isn't. Again, JA's Board has done a terrible disservice to everyone involved with the school.

Get a grip and face facts !!!!!!!!!!!!!

To the JJ readers who can not grasp what they read and have not visited Byram since 2000 and do not have a clue of the good that comes from Harbor House....maybe you should drive by JA and let some reading comprehension grasp your soul.

To the Sheffield residents...you better go see Lester at Beemon's and get some burn cream ...... Brad just scorched your bum!!!

@12:10 for the WIN!!! ROTFL

LB strikes again at 12:38!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nobody trusts lawyers

Reeves is a lawyer.

Reeves should remodel it as a house and move on.

Zero to gain.

@12:38 No, you didn't hit a nerve - it's just your overwhelming ignorance is laughably pathetic. What exactly is a "HOOD" and what exactly qualifies the area around JA as such? Do you mean that african-americans (gasp) live in close proximity? Do you mean that the area median income is below a certain threshold? Have you ever been to an actual inner-city "HOOD" - and where (besides Jackson)? It must be something you saw in a movie that keeps you up at night.
Reminds me of The Princess Bride: "You keep using that word - I do not think it means what you think it means..."

I would not live in that area even if I could buy a house for fifty cents on the dollar. By the way, that is where the prices are headed---50 cents on the dollar !!!!!

Brad, your are nuts for wanting to put your office there. If you knew who I am, you would know I'm right. Fifty years of real estate experience gives me the right to call it as I see it.

Run Brad run !!!!!

Might as well go ahead and talk about what to do with the rest of the homes/lots up and down Ridgewood, from Meadowbrook to Old Canton (really Atkins, but I'll stay realistic). Thankfully the worst of them was demolished recently. Not many people, renters or owners, want to live on a busy 4-lane road. Regardless of the fine houses just off the main drag, the optics of this stretch of road is detracting from NE Jackson.

If this following the Land Use Plan pretty much have to grant the zoning change or be sued into it . Time to raise hell when during the Land Use Planning stage.

11:52. Use of property can be anything in that zone ; not just the one use being ask for. Can not be restricted to office space.

"Trust me, I just want to invest and improve the property",says the petitioner. "My only interest is in spending some money to make it a nice place. After all, I graduated from high school there and my goal in life is to give back." (Use of editorial license obviously employed a bit.)

Petitioners, builders, developers...they come and they go. But not a damned one of them is honest when he claims he only wants what's best for the neighborhood and wants to make it a really nice place. And every one of them says that up front.

@2:32 - Fondren is extremely glad they trusted Mike Peters. But maybe you'd prefer Fondren Corner and Duling School to still be mostly vacant and rotting away?

The Sheffield residents who fight this are doing so at their own risk. Brad is a strong promoter of Jackson. He lives there and spends his money investing in it. I wouldn't invest in the city, and I wouldn't want to develop a law practice at that location on Ridgewood Road. Much less put up the fight he'll have to endure to do so. But he will. And if wins the fight to build a law firm office in that location, it will be a damn sight better than anything else being done on Ridgewood Road. No homeowner willing to buy that lot is likely to enhance its value.

According to the JA directory, Brad Reeves and his family live in the city of Jackson so I am inclined to believe that he cares about our property values here in town.

haha, jackson academy is gonna have another reason to build even bigger walls. Long Live Prep

Madison County is littered with office complexes literally at the front entrance of many upscale (gated) subdivisions. How is this worse than the dilapidated daycare or the McDonald's a stone's throw from Petit Bois and Eastover? This is just people being offended for the sake of being offended. No is wanting to buy this property and put up a $500k house. This is your best bet. Thank you Brad for your invest in Jackson. Brad truly puts his money where his mouth is when it comes to being a Jackson supporter!

For the peasant who asks 'what exactly is a hood?', it's short for neighborhood. A mixed use area of defined boundary, the inhabitants of which have things in common such as stolen bicycles, porch-sitters, close cropped lawns (snakes), a grill out front, a woman in the driveway with a broom 24/7, congregants under one or more large trees swilling cheap beer and toking weed and a Pontiac on 23s in at least half the yards.

Does that help?

Boring.

If you're going to take the NE Jackson tabloid angle, KF, you need more affairs, drugs, careers destroyed over denied hugs, etc.

If Brad Reeves wants to spend the money from the law firm his daddy gave him to build a whorehouse across from JA, then you can call me.

I don't have a horse in this race, but I do Know the Reeves family and they don't come any better than them. Remember the Reeves were one of the first investors in Fondren (Brent's Drugs) and you can look at the positive returns which have come from this. If anyone in the Reeves family says they have no secret plan to undermine the neighborhood, I believe them. In fact thank them for at least refurbishing a quickly deteriorating piece of property across from the school that their children attend..

AMEN Maryann, I could not have described it any better. People along the Ridgewood Road corridor are beginning to see the resemblance to Ellis Avenue. It won't be long before it looks just like Ellis Avenue because the 20" rims are already there.

Brad Reeves is a good man. Always stopped and said hey to me no matter where or when.

Fake outrage.

Total outsider opinion, but I can't believe anyone wants to invest in Jackson. I will do not business in Jackson, avoid it like an illness. I have changed doctors just so I don't have to drive there any longer. To all homeowners, sell, sell now before your property values fall more. Good luck to those who stay. I don't want to do business with anyone or company who locates in this city.

Comes from a nice family, always kept his room neat, graduated from a school in the hood. Therefore he can be trusted to do right and only has the best interest of the hood at heart. Can you spell fallacy?

With all the lawyers living on Sheffield I have to assume SAHA understands the zoning application documents. Why is there any resistance here? As one of the many Sheffield lawyers I have to say that I welcome Brad's attempts to renovate this eyesore of a property. There aren't many people trying to fix up buildings around Jackson. I don't know why the neighborhood would try to discourage this.

6:20: Please remain an outsider. We don't need or want your business.

53 comments so far and not a single idea offered for use of the property that would please SAHA. You folks would rather it sit vacant and deteriorate further? Are yall upset because JA didn't buy it? Maybe SAHA could buy the property and donate it to JA if any plans for re-purposing cause this much concern.

I don't remember this much stink being made by area residents when the huge sewage pump trailer and hoses were in the middle of Sheffield for almost a year due to breaks in the line. It was much appreciated and rather humorous when repairs were made within a month of Chokwe taking office.

I don't remember this much stink being made by area residents when the huge sewage pump trailer and hoses were in the middle of Sheffield for almost a year due to breaks in the line. It was much appreciated and rather humorous when repairs were made within a month of Chokwe taking office.

Pure bunk revisionist Kushnik history.

Chokwe didn't fix it, he inherited the solution that was long in coming but the wheels were already well in motion. AND a stink was made extensively in public, at Council meetings and here on JJ.

Chokwe didn't accomplish jack except marshall the passage of the special sales tax. His supposed successes as Mayor are 95% myth.

Why are you keyboard cowboys so concerned with what happens to this building if you don't live in Jackson, don't care about Jackson, don't ever come to Jackson, etc? I commend Brad for his efforts. He is a great guy. For the rest of you losers, who can't differentiate your house from your neighbors and sit in traffic for hours a day (maybe that's where the anger comes from) worry about your own problems, there seems to be plenty of those to go around no matter what suburb county you live in.

It is a very real problem. Though that parcel may be improved and used in an innocuous manner, the rezoning itself becomes proof of change in the character of the neighborhood to support future requests to rezone in the area. Our city council is hardly known for long range planning, good judgement or the proper application of facts to the law.

9:09 - What IS your point other than to say, "I don't have an opinion and neither should you"?

The point here is this: When property is rezoned, the owner can do whatever the hell he wants to with it as long as it falls somewhere within the many possibilities allowed by the zoning in effect for the parcel.

There is absolutely zero assurance that the man would put his law office there. NONE! No developer or property owner is obligated to state specifically what he will put on the property, if rezoned. "I foresee an office building" can mean literally almost any damned thing! Regardless of how many client-less lawyers live on that street.

04/11/12 - 10:24 "another example of mississippis economic growth. housing and wet-nursing stinking junkies off of a federal grant in a residential neighborhood . that is what people in mississippi see as economic development. if those junkies need to dry out, put em on a farm in the delta at the business end of a cotton sack. i guess this is the only type"industry" the republican party can bring to mississippi."


Would hope that NOW we could get this sorta crap changed!

Andrew Mattiace was the brains and investor in Fondren---Mike Peters is just a puppet. I'm tired of hearing what a great job Peters has done---none of it was possible without Mattiace.

The truth is the truth !!!!!!!!!!!!!

"I don't want to do business with anyone or company who locates in this city."

Mr. Consistent doesn't care about Jackson, but visits a Jackson-based web site that is about Jackson and even has Jackson in its name.

1:50pm, Mike Peters a puppet?? Someone tell Mike Peters that, please haha.

I do live in this neighborhood and love it. I am sad to think that people could be so filled with hate and actually write some of these comments. This neighborhood is a great place to live with wonderful people and all your negative comments won't change that. And some of you saying that you won't do business is Jackson is ridiculous - you are cutting off your nose to spite your face. And to the realtor who said "HE" had been in the real estate business for 50 years and implied he knew what he was talking about concerning the value of our homes - just wait until the people in the area find out who you are! And if you are so knowledgeable and stand by what you say why don't you just reveal yourself? I am sure you will respond with some sarcastic, rude and inappropriate answer. Why are you filled with such vileness? On a happier note, I do agree that Brad is a great guy and truly works to improve Jackson with that said I'm not sure I want commercial property on that end of Sheffield. I am sure Brad's intentions are what he says they are - good intentions because he is an honorable man. It just concerns me that other property on that street might follow suite and become commercial property or that later Brad might sell that office space and then it becomes something undesirable. Yes those of us who chose to stay and try to right this town are probably waging a losing battle, but folks like the ones spewing venom on this page who live outside of Jackson need to realize that the things that are wrong with Jackson will one day be your problems as well. Running solves nothing and only magnifies the problems with a small minority trying to stay and hang on. It is sad to think that this is Holy Week, the most scared week for Christians, and then to read the horrible comments on this page makes me think that Jesus needs to come now! Mean spirited, divisive, racist and on and on! I hope that some of you will re-read what you wrote and think about what you have written - I personally would be ashamed of some of these comments. You would do better to remain silent if you have such hateful thoughts and feelings. And if you don't live in Jackson, why do you even need or want to comment? With that said I love this neighborhood and the people in it - and don't like to see others bashing us!

@1:06

Dang skippy. Don't let people judge you. If you love the ghetto, it's your choice to do so.

Amen, 1:06! The suburbs are successful because they are near the Capitol City, and they will fail when it fails. God's blessings on Jackson. Happy Easter to you.
10:27, your last little swipe after that speaks VOLUMES of your lack of character and spirit.

The suburbs are successful because they're OUTSIDE of Jackson.

THANK YOU April 12 9:09am

I was born in Jackson and live in Jackson. I lived in Madison for 8 years in the 90s and COULD NOT WAIT to move back into the city. Simple, if you don't like it, don't live here. Socially, I'm sure it is difficult for some.