Explore the Corridor: Hendricks Avenue merchants launch the #HendricksCorridor visibility campaign
With a simple hashtag on social media, small businesses along San Marco’s Hendricks Avenue are working together to help raise the visibility of the destination that street is becoming for shopping, dining and living your best life in San Marco.
Kurt Rogers, co-founder of Bar Molino and The Swinerie, coined #HendricksCorridor in a June social media post on Bar Molino’s Instagram account, tagging as many businesses located along Hendricks Avenue as he could and, in the comments, inviting viewers to tag others he may have forgotten.
The post read:
“We love San Marco and everything it has to offer. From the Square to the river, from all the parks to all the local business, it never ceases to amaze us anytime we walk or drive through our neighborhood just how lucky we are. With all of the hustle and bustle and new construction going on, we wanted to bring some awareness to our little strip and all of the locally owned business on it.
Welcome to the #hendrickscorridor
Spanning from Atlantic to 95, there’s just about something for everyone down the corridor. So next time your [sic] out and about shopping, eating or drinking, tag the corridor and help us gather some steam behind the campaign.”
Since then, other businesses along the corridor have picked up the hashtag to help promote the area and their business.
“We want it to be a thing,” explained Bar Molino Co-founder Alfred Young.
Rogers and Young have spearheaded the Hendricks Corridor through more than just social media hashtags. In addition to reaching out to other businesses, they’ve reached out to the San Marco Merchants Association (SMMA) to discuss ways it can work with Hendricks businesses to help identify the corridor as another destination within San Marco beyond the San Marco Square, which is easily the most recognizable and well-known part of the community. And they hope this movement will extend beyond Hendricks Avenue onto other San Marco streets that are beginning to boom with new businesses as well.
These corridors are “culturally different” from the rest of San Marco, Young said.
“It’s just a different part of the neighborhood,” he said. “We’re wanting to kind of tag it; we’re wanting to kind of identify it.”
Before The Corridor
Robert Harris is the managing partner of San Marco law firm Harris Guidi Rosner, P.A., located on Hendricks Avenue. As a lifelong San Marco resident and lawyer – he built his firm’s first building in 1986 and the second in ’88 – he’s been in a unique position to observe the evolution of the area and said he has been “overwhelmed” by the improvements he’s seen and is excited about all the change and growth the area currently underway.
“In almost all respects, [I’m] really excited,” he said. “It isn’t just residential; it isn’t just commercial. It’s retail, it’s professional, it’s restaurants. It’s a little bit of everything.”
Next door to Bar Molino is High Tide Burrito, owned by Alejandro Juarez. It has called Hendricks Avenue home since May 2009. Juarez said already back then, he saw “a lot of opportunity” on Hendricks and that opportunity has carried through to present day.
“I think the Hendricks Corridor is appealing because it’s still in the urban setting of San Marco and there is available space,” he said. “I think there’s good, positive momentum. The more businesses that open up, I think it will attract more people to the area. The San Marco Square is always going to have its charm, but there’s only so many restaurants or businesses that can open up there.”
New Kids On the Corridor
Just now approaching its first anniversary, Bar Molino is still one of the newer businesses on the corridor, but it’s joined by several other businesses that have opened in the recent years, either before or just after.
Vive Yoga Studio, part of Jax Natural Healing, was founded by Alejandra Amegin just one year before Bar Molino opened. Amegin works with Dr. Dan O’Leary, owner and clinical director. According to their website, Amegin’s is the first Latina-owned yoga studio/wellness space in Northeast Florida.
She said there is a certain level of cohesion among the businesses that are growing around her studio, which has generated opportunity for everyone.
“I think it’s been a really big win, plus also the type of restaurant that [Bar Molino is] aligns with the type of customer that comes into a holistic and wellness place, and now with the addition of KraVegan just like a few doors down, which is even more aligned, we have just increased visiliby, increased traffic,” she said.
Within one year of opening his family-owned butcher shop along Hendricks Avenue in 2018, it became evident to Cline’s Custom Meats Owner Joe Cline that his shop would rapidly outgrow its space. Just last month, Cline’s was able to move into its larger location two blocks down, still along Hendricks. Cline said to be so wholly embraced by the community to allow expansion within such a short period of time was a “humbling” experience.
“Sometimes I gotta pinch myself at how fast we grew,” he said.
While Jacksonville itself is a spread-out city, people are beginning to find pockets of walkability within different neighborhoods. With various phases of the Emerald Trail either currently under construction or in development, along with the planned riverfront parks and North- and Southbank Riverwalk expansions planned, walkability will continue to increase.
In San Marco, however, that walkability is already there, and Cline said it’s allowing residents and visitors to find everything they need in one place.
“With the growth that we’re seeing in San Marco, you’re finding the one-stop shopping and the variety of restaurants and you’re able to get everything here in this cool neighborhood,” he said.
Wick: A Candle Bar is located across the street from Bar Molino and opened in 2019. Locally owned by mother-son duo Kristanna and Hampton Barnes, it provides guests with a unique experience of pouring their own custom-made scented soy wax candles.
Hampton said it’s exciting to see the momentum building along the corridor and anticipates more opportunities to interact with new clients as construction nears completion at the Station at San Marco – the mixed-use residential development down Hendricks near I-95 – and units begin filling up at the recently completed The Hendricks at San Marco, another residential complex near the new Publix. He sees these new developments as an opportunity to introduce the community to more people who haven’t had a chance to experience it yet.
“It amazes me how many people at least come into my business, and they’ve never been to San Marco or they’re afraid to kind of come downtown,” he said. “So, the more people that come to live here hopefully brings growth to businesses and entertainment, leading people from other neighborhoods in the city to our neck of the woods.”
Other businesses along the Hendricks Corridor include KraVegan, Foliahōm, Pure Barre, One Bridal, Aardwolf Brewing, Jack Rabbits, Sidecar Jax, The Olive Tree, Good Dough, Earth Pets San Marco, San Marco Dreamette, V Pizza and more.
A Merchant Collaboration
When SMMA President Leah Roesler stepped into her new leadership role this past January, she told The Resident one of the things she looked forward to was bringing more cohesion to the association for on- and off-square merchants.
The launch of the Hendricks Corridor campaign is the perfect opportunity for her to do just that, and Roesler said she’s excited to see the drive and commitment these merchants have to invest in themselves and their community.
“Obviously when people think of San Marco, they think of the Square, which is great, but there are so many things to do, places to eat up the Hendricks Corridor, up San Marco Boulevard, now up Atlantic as well,” she said. “So, they’re starting to really put their heads together and think of ways to make those destinations themselves within San Marco.”
SMMA is looking at new ways to help with that visibility effort and providing more opportunities for off-square shops and businesses to participate in events that, historically, have been more easily accessible by on-square merchants.
“We have to be a little more creative,” Roesler said. “We’re in the process of getting all those ideas together. They don’t have to be held on the square only, they don’t have to be one-day only. They can be a coordinated effort where everybody has a QR code at their register for a discount or there’s some sort of a passport or whatever the case may be. We’re just trying to get all the information from people on what’s helpful.”
By Michele Leivas
Resident Community News
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