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CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: YOUR INSIGHT
THE MATHIS REPORT
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Professional photographer and makeup artist Renee Parenteau is relying on her safety net, adding online lessons and urging her fellow entrepreneurs to stay connected.
Industrial park planned with 2M square feet JACKSONVILLE of buildings
Daily Record
Benderson Development intends to start work by summer on a North Jacksonville project.
BY KAREN BRUNE MATHIS EDITOR
KAREN BRUNE MATHIS EDITOR
For many small ventures, the economic impact of COVID-19 is not a pretty picture. “My business is on hold for now,” said professional photographer and makeup artist Renee Parenteau. Knowing hers is not an essential business, the lifelong entrepreneur is focused on adjusting her finances, helping other ventures survive and staying healthy. “I’ve been in business for myself all my life and I look at it as a slow period,” said the West Coast native whose career includes doing makeup for celebrities in Los Angeles and worldwide. She moved to Jacksonville in 2007 and started Renee Parenteau Photography as the economy tanked toward the Great Recession. “I always made sure my overhead is as low as possible,” she said. She rents both Springfield duplex units at 55 E. Third St., divided between her studio and her home. Experience taught her the importance of financial reserves, spending cuts and marketing. “I have a safety net because being selfemployed, I can’t live paycheck-to-paycheck, month-to-month,” she said.
Image by Renee Parenteau
Renee Parenteau said her photography business, based at 55 E. Third St. in Historic Springfield, is on hold during the coronavirus pandemic.
KEEPING CLOSE – FROM A DISTANCE Since March 13, city event venues, stores, restaurants, malls, entertainment centers, churches and businesses shut down and laid off workers or sent them home to telecommute to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The Daily Record will report how local small business owners are dealing with the imposed social isolation.
SEE MATHIS, PAGE 2
Florida-based Benderson Development Co. LLC intends to start work by the end summer on its 203-acre industrial park in North Jacksonville at northeast Interstate 95 and Pecan Park Road. Director of Development Todd Mathes said April 16 he is working with prospects for both proposed buildings – the 499,000-square-foot Building 100 and the almost 1.54 millionsquare-foot Building 200. Asked if the prospects were e-commerce companies, Mathes said that “is a reasonable perspective.” While neither company has confirmed interest in Jacksonville, both Walmart Stores Inc. and Lowe’s Companies Inc. have been speculated as prospective tenants for e-commerce projects in Jacksonville for two to three years. Mathes would not comment on those names. Mathes did say that the two deals for Benderson’s buildings “seem very serious” about Jacksonville. SEE MATHIS, PAGE 2
Tamaya Sprouts Farmers Market to open April 29 Sprouts Farmers Market will open at 7 a.m. April 29 at 12675 Beach Blvd. in Tamaya Market. The new location is the second Sprouts in Jacksonville. Store hours adjusted for the COVID-19 pandemic are 7 a.m.-8 p.m. daily. As part of Sprouts’ commitment to “zero waste,” the new store will donate unsold edible groceries to Feeding Northeast Florida through the grocer’s Food Rescue program. In 2019, Sprouts stores and distribution centers donated 27 million pounds of product, equivalent to 23 million meals.
VOLUME 107, NO. 108 • ONE SECTION