It all started with a simple sketch on a napkin many years ago.
A Millsaps College student had a vision to create a place where Jackson locals could eat, drink, play games, as well as hang out with their family and pets.
Russell Morrison was that student and business analyst who drew up the concept on a napkin and shared it with professors and other students who were a part Millsaps’ ELSEworks entrepreneurship program.
Now, many of those programs are coming to fruition and 2023 could see real progress.
Paul Thomas, director of Business Analysts for Millsaps College’s Else School of Management, is overseeing much of the work and believes Midtown is a place that can see real change in the near future. While Midtown is not the only focus of the programs, Thomas said it is where the vast majority of the effort is put forth.
Midtown has been defined as an area that runs from Woodrow Wilson Ave. on the North to Fortification Street to the South and in between Mill Street and West Street.
“We are a community-focused consulting group and we are a branch of Millsaps College,” Thomas said. “But the work that we do is really outside the footprint of Millsaps, and Midtown is a perfect place for us to focus on since we are a part of that.”
ELSEworks does everything from helping entrepreneurs with business planning, financial projections to advance research and reporting.
“For example, if a medical marijuana company comes to us and wants to understand what the margin in Mississippi may look like over the next one-to-three years, we are able to really dive deep into some granular data from other places to gain insight,” Thomas said. “The really cool things we do is we don’t just focus on community revitalization at the grassroots level, we are also helping students get real-world experience in a lot of different key areas.”
It’s doing work in Jackson for Jackson and giving students an upper hand with resume building material at the same time.
“I know all of this to be true, because I was one of those students,” Thomas said.
However, he said none of what his group is trying to do comes easily and hard work must be done.
“I don’t want to sound all kumbaya in any way,” Thomas said. “Everyone who lives in Jackson or has been around Jackson for a while understands there are challenges. We face crime, infrastructural issues, sewage, roads. We face all of these issues along with everyone else. So, we are trying to revitalize and face all of these other issues simultaneously.”
There is one area where there are essentially three projects that Thomas believes will see significant progress during the new year.
“It’s really a triple-headed beast,” Thomas said.
The Midtown Mosaic, the Midtown Depot and BRIX, the rum distillery, are all within one city block along Livingston Street and are all part of the Midtown project.
BRIX, owned by Trey Malone, is expected to open in 2023 at the corner of Mill and Livingston. BRIX is using sugar cane to create rum and rum-based cocktails. They are working in a large building that once held Lucky Town Brewing. There will be a bar on site that will allow patrons to actually see the rum being made.
In fact, the building is large enough that Malone is able to use some of the space to help two other entrepreneurs house projects, including a bakery, called Just Vanilla and a coffee roasting company called North Shore Specialty Coffee.
The Midtown Depot, started many years ago, is an outdoor venue and cultural hub, consisting of three shipping containers — one serving as restrooms and others for food and bar service. The venue also features an upstairs deck area that looks across a lawn. It was started by Morrison and the very first ELSEworks analysts.
“We still have the napkin that he created the idea on,” Thomas said. “It is a really cool space and the bar actually has hydraulic hinges and unfolds from one of the containers. It is one of the only places in our urban area that has a lot of green space.”
The Mosaic is another ELSEworks project that is a spinoff of the Midtown Depot. The original idea was create a community museum, highlighting the past, present and future of midtown. However, that turned into an idea to create an outdoor art park in between BRIX and the Midtown Depot.
It will be an interactive art park and outdoor community hub for Midtown. It will provide expansive space for highlighting the past, present and future of Midtown through art, culture and music. Midtown Mosaic will contain a children-focused art container, art sculptures, murals, a venue area with seating and more. The Midtown Mosaic will showcase the unique social, racial and cultural diversity of Midtown using history, art and music while also providing a canvas for the beautification of the neighborhood.
“We took the original idea for the Midtown Mosaic and morphed it into something new,” Thomas said. “It will be more fun and engaging than a simple museum. It’s really the best of both worlds.”
Thomas said that while many things they are working might take much time to implement, those are three projects that people in Jackson and throughout Central Mississippi can look forward to enjoying before the end of 2023 and will be proof that revitalization in Midtown is off and running.
© Clarion Ledger – USA TODAY NETWORK
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