b'ancient seaside village on the Island of Brac in Croatia. What struck him most, andWELCOME TO CORPUS CHRISTIthat inspired the mission he would later undertake back home in Texas, was the per- Seven years after Jeff Blackard committed to building the $300 million Barisi Village sonal connectivity among the Croatian villagers, and how the sharing of wisdomproject, a state lawsuit that has stopped it is currently in the hands of the 13th Court between generations and social and occupational classes added richness, kindness,of AppealsbutWelcome to Corpus Christi.and vitality to the entire villagein other words, what America had mostly lost overOn one of his many trips to the area in support of the Barisi Village project, its century of separation, to which Blackard had been no small contributor. Marilyn Jordan took Blackard for a ride over the big bridge to North Beach, where he For two decades that started in the early-1980s, Jeff Blackard built over 15,000could find unheard-of-prices on urban, waterfront property. After seeing the flooding home sites in dozens of subdivisions in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, in Northproblem on the peninsula, he showed no real interest and chalked it up as a problem Carolina, and on the back side of Galveston Island where his Pirates communities,the City of Corpus Christi needed to fix first, before he or anyone would want to in-all canal-front, earned awards for environmental conservation. The Central Illinoisvest therethat was before he met Lynn Frazier, the founder and owner and Magnum native overcame family challenges and dyslexia in school that resulted in his failingOil Tool Company who had spent over $7 million building Fajitaville.the second and third grades, along with the shame among his peers that came withFrazier, a South Texas farmers son who made it big in the oilfield industry, it. Jeff turned much of his energy toward athletics and was awarded a scholarship tolived in The Harbors canal-front neighborhood located on the back side of North Northwestern University for track and field, specifically for his ability to completeBeach, and since his youth saw the amazing potential of this beloved section of Cor-in the Decathlon.Days of gloryAbound with tourists and seaside villagers, North Beach was the center of fun and activity in the decades before the 1959 Harbor Bridge opened.At six-foot-four, Blackard was encouraged to try out for the basketball team,pus Christi that once served as the center of recreation and entertainment for all and before long, he was playing in the Big Ten against the likes of Michigan Statesof South Texas, up until the construction of the current Harbor Bridge in the late-Earvin Magic Johnson and the Washington Huskies Isaiah Thomas. While he did1950s. The Frazier-Blackard partnership and friendship that emerged after Marilyn not go on to play in the NBA, he moved to Dallas to pursue a career in home build- Jordan worked for months to introduce them, has endured challenges, setbacks and ing and has since earned a spot in the upper ranks of Texas-based land developers. disappointments on a road of intermittent, but milestone, successes.Blackards success in Croatia in the early-2000s also inspired his new approach toJeff Blackards new association with Lynn Frazier was an early step in creating community design and architecturethe concept he coined Neoretroism is the pro- the 2016 vision for redeveloping North Beach, initiated by Mayor Nelda Martinez, cess of building modern, high-tech communities that are wholly inspired by ancient ar- soon after funding was approved for the new Harbor Bridge. She, Frazier and count-less others in Corpus Christi were, and are, particularly concerned about our spar-chitecture, and his first real-world application would be Adriatica in McKinney. Fight- kling new, billion-dollar bridge, the tallest and longest of its kind in North America, ing through the countrys last economic collapse 12 years ago, Blackards masterpiecedelivering visitors to shameful dilapidation and blight coming-and-goingan audi-evolved into the reality it is today as one of DFWs most sought-after places to live andence that includes over 800,000 visitors per year to the U.S.S. Lexington Museum work. Adriatica was even featured in Money Magazine as part of its story about McKin- and the Texas State Aquarium. Above all, the motivating factor for Blackards inter-ney, the Best Place to Live in the U.S. Blackard has hosted symposia on Neoretroismest as a developer, and Fraziers as a member of the community, boiled down to throughout the U.S. and the world, including recently in India and United Arab Emir- unmet potentialthe same unmet potential seen in just about every corner of the ates, and his advisory council includes political, business and media heavyweights.Coastal Bend, but that painfully stands out on North Beach.44 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINEQ2.2020 TheCoastalBend.com'