James Combs, the founder of Corinth Combs Coffee, aims to inspire economic impact through his historic comprehensive project.
The owner of a coffee shop in Corinth plans to use a 60,000-square-foot reconstruction project to transform the North Texas border town of Gainesville. The plan calls for the placement of hotels, rock climbing halls, coffee shops and bakery, restaurants, event venues, etc. in this space.
"We are trying to be a catalyst, trying to get people to start migrating in this way," said James Combs, the founder of Combs Coffee.
The development is located in a 5-acre urban block, bordered by Broadway and Scott Street from the north to the south, Denison Street and Hickory Creek from the east to the west, and is on the street in downtown Gainesville. Its eight buildings were built between 1888 and 1918, and were once home to a flour mill, a cream factory, an ice store, and a power company. Later, Coca-Cola purchased the ice storage part of the space and turned it into a bottling plant and then a brand museum.
Recently, a recycling center operated outside the ice storage and part of another building on the property.
"We are trying to incorporate some old nostalgia in the history of the complex and register it as a National Historic Site," Combs said. "It also gives it a more'resto-mod' type feel." He added that in today's market, the replacement cost of these buildings is about $25 million.
The front building of the development is located at the intersection of Broadway and Denison Street. It used to be a weighing room where factory workers would weigh trucks full of grain. It is now home to Combs’ 2,000-square-foot coffee shop. His roasting factory is located in another building on the site and is the world's largest solar coffee and cocoa roasting factory. The power supply is distributed between the two buildings-31 kilowatts at the top of the baking space and 8 kilowatts above the store.
"We tied 108 solar panels to the top of the coffee shop and roasting space," Combs said.
Combs abandoned the financial industry in 2013 and launched his coffee concept and roasting business, which gained fame in the specialty coffee world due to its completely solar-powered business, hydroponic garden and ethical procurement.
He bought a new location in Gainesville in 2020, which he called the CAB (Community and Commercial) Station, and used the slower contractors during the pandemic to remodel the current coffee shop. Stash Design, the company behind Davis Street espresso and Wild Detectives decor, helped Combs use recycled and reused materials, such as reclaimed wood and old tractor seats, to decorate and decorate the space.
"Everything we can think of, except for machines, has been recycled," Combs said.
A lonely food truck parked in the open space behind the store, where Combs held a community market on Saturday through his non-profit organization (also known as CAB Station). This non-profit organization is dedicated to helping budding entrepreneurs start their small businesses. The venue is also home to a concert stage made of shipping containers.
"I want to use my experience on the Denton Community Market board to build something similar here," he said.
The building behind the market space is a two-story steel, concrete, and brick structure, which Coms has cleaned up with a pandemic. Because this 30,000-square-foot structure used to be a flour mill, its materials and steel pillars were durable-able to withstand explosions, which was common in factories at the time.
"Their last flour mill in this town was burned down," Combs said. "They built this in its place, and they over-designed the living daylight to make sure it doesn't burn."
He is working with Gary Buckner, co-owner of Oak Cliff's Tyler Station as a business partner and minority shareholder, to model the lower level according to their design, which contains approximately 215-500 square feet of vendor booths.
"We may open a restaurant here, but mainly we want this [lower floor] to become a maker space," Combs said.
He hopes that some manufacturers can provide snacks and services to future brides, because the upper floor may become an event and wedding venue with a commercial kitchen.
The other part of this two-story building, perhaps its roof, Coombs has replaced it with walkable materials, will be dedicated to the restaurant concept of one of the few owners of Petra and the Beast, he is Gain A native of Sveil.
"[He] wanted to open a restaurant here," Combs said.
The six-story building next door, Combs said, will become a hotel. Both buildings have basements, and Combs hopes to transform them into an underground bar-like place, perhaps with a whiskey tasting room somewhere in the underground combination. The historic tunnel, rumored to have initially connected these buildings to the larger town, still connects the two buildings, and Combs intends to restore them to working condition.
"During the ban, [Gainesville] was completely dry and very conservative, while Fort Worth was not like that," Combs said. "So, a lot of people brought a lot of cattle and grain, they just went to Fort Worth. They bypassed Gainesville.... So, the town shrank because of that decision. But, at the same time, The infrastructure here is much stronger than Fort Worth back then. They just shot under their feet."
The town was named after the American General Gaines, and the town struggled to prosper in the 1850s due to the constant threat of Native American attacks across the Red River. After the Civil War, it became a full-fledged bull city, accessible via the Katy Railroad, which passed through Texas from the north, connecting Gainesville with Fort Worth and further southern cities. With the help of nearby oil discoveries and its nationally renowned circus, Gainesville survived the Great Depression, but it is still a border town. By 2000, its population had just exceeded 15,000. According to the 2019 Census, there are now approximately 16,500 North Texans with a median household income of $44,753.
The development is located in the center of the town, just a few blocks from the historic districts of Main Street and California Street, which is similar to the center of many small towns in Texas-a row of shops and local businesses on an old brick street . Amtrak station is nearby, making it easy to travel from big cities. I-35 North passes through towns west of the development zone and the United States. Highway 82 is just north of the town.
Ideally, Combs would like to cooperate with a large hotel operator to manage and operate the hotel, but he is accepting proposals from interested locals and considering the possibility of operating in-house. "We are still in the early stages," he said.
Behind the hotel is a former grain refinery, where the mill workers weigh the grain in the front building, dump it, process it, and then transport it to six 150-foot silos on the back of the building.
Combs wanted to turn the building and its supporting silo into a climbing gym and bungee jumping station. He has hired Ben Wright and Tanner Fontenot, who are behind the redesign of the Carrollton Silo Climbing Gym, which can still be seen from Interstate 35. Although it closed down due to COVID.
"We looked at what [Combs] had and his plans, and then we were shocked," Wright said.
The sky trail will connect the hotel and the climbing gym. The new gym will offer multiple types of rock climbing inside-bouldering, top rope and lead climbing-in addition to the outdoor climbing option outside the gym, Combs plans to paint a mural there. Combs said that there will be bungee jumping stations on the roof.
"What we are trying to do is bridge the gap between the indoor side and the outdoor side (rock climbing)," Wright said.
Wright and Fontenot plan to locate their current company in this new location in Gainesville, which organizes adventurous rock climbing tours across the country.
"For me, that location was the main site of the explosion," Wright said.
A long building at the far end of the development project used to be an ice storehouse, and later a Coca-Cola bottling plant and museum. Then it became a recycling center, operating until Combs took over.
Combs said that the older generations occasionally still came with bags of cans, but now, this 10,000 square foot space is what he calls a coffee laboratory and roasting plant. There is a counter and roaster at the front of the building, where Coombs holds coffee education courses and stores bags of roasted coffee beans. There are more classroom equipment in the next room. Upstairs is Combs' office.
The rear of this building will become a car museum, which is led by Combs' father, who has moved several collection cars into this space. The light sports aircraft that his father set five Guinness World Records (including flying to all 50 states) will also be parked there. In a sense, the father-son team is restoring this space to its former glory.
"This is the automobile museum of the 70s," Combs said. "One of the previous car owners was a car dealer in town named Frankie Schmitz, so he has a car museum and a Coca-Cola museum here."
The final building, formerly a cream factory, will also resume its original purpose: Comb's hopes to restore a cream shop or ice cream shop in the building and fill its approximately 20 rooms with restaurant and dessert concepts.
"There are plenty of opportunities for more mature companies to participate," Combs said.
With the launch and operation of the coffee part of his new business, Combs’ next step is to fire safety and establish a historic development with appropriate tax credits. The sprinkler system alone has operated more than 250,000 Combs.
"Before we got the proper funding, we flinched a bit," he said.
So far, Combs’ goal is to make his business fully self-funded, and the goal is to get another $17 million from lenders.
Combs is collaborating with the sustainability-centric Dallas companies Sunergon and Oikia 21 to develop the architecture and engineering of the entire development project. He is also negotiating with the owners of a large scrapyard near the property to purchase it and convert it into a parking space.
Combs spent more than two years working with the City of Gainesville to ensure that the property was historically properly licensed and classified. According to Combs, repartitioning takes a long time.
James Combs is also making similar efforts in Corinth, but on a smaller scale. After the lease expires, his flagship store will be completed here.
The Collins Space will be located next to the I-35 Interstate and will feature a coffee shop, concert stage, playground, food truck space, bicycle rental area, dining area and rainwater harvesting area. Its bones will contain several upgraded shipping containers.
"Once we fully obtain the permits and approvals, they can build [Corinthian Space] in about six to eight months," Combs said.
He hopes to break ground in the first quarter of 2022.
"We had to reclassify it as a mixed-use program development," Combs said. "It took a long time to try to convince everyone in the city council, the mayor and the city manager what our plan was, and show them Taylor Station as a model of something bigger than it. This is done... "He said.
After the space was rezoned, Combs began to work hard to obtain occupancy certificates for all eight buildings. Now, he is working to update the user type from storage to retail, update fire safety and HVAC elements, and obtain historical tax status. Once this is all done, Combs said he is confident that the work can be completed in two years.
"Our engineers and architects said that they can dismantle it in about 24 months, which is crazy," he said. "I hope it's as simple as that, we can let lightning strike, and everything will catch on fire."
This sounds like a daunting task, but he admits that Coms, who worked 19 hours the previous week, is used to and ready to meet the challenge.
"I am definitely a workhorse," he said.
Combs believes that the economic impact of Gainesville will be huge, creating an unforgettable stop on the road from Dallas to Oklahoma City, improving parking in downtown areas, and creating for entrepreneurs Employment opportunities and space to develop their business.
"This will be a huge boon for the entire region," Combs said. "I think it will only attract a lot of traffic. Parking spaces alone will be a great asset for the city."
Eventually, he also hopes to expand to other cities with similar historical reconstructions.
"If we can do this, yes, I think this is a model that can be expanded and replicated in multiple cities," Combs said.
Note: Previous versions of this story indicate that derivative works of Petra and the Beast are focusing on this developing space. The story has been corrected to indicate that the restaurant space will be a concept proposed by the minority shareholders of Petra and the Beast, rather than a derivative product of the menu or design.