The Historic Parking Lots of Cape Girardeau

I was going home from a beautiful evening of exceptionally crappy golf last week when I crossed Broadway on Sprigg and spied a sign on the long vacant building that occupies the southeast corner of that intersection. It said:

TURN KEY
HISTORIC PROJECT
FED PART 1 & 2 APPROVED!
45% RESTORATION TAX CREDITS
Eligible for Brownfield Tax Credits

I know enough about construction to be both a pain-in-the-butt to contractors and to know that this building would likely be an exceptionally deep money pit for whomever buys it. In fact, the city recently issued a summons to the current owner to fix a bowed brick wall. That will not be cheap. While the property might be "turn key," if anyone undertakes this project they will have to spend a lot of money to get that 45 cents on the dollar.

Or the owners could just forgo all that very hard and very expensive work and do the practical thing.

Tear the building down and replace it with a parking lot.

Broadway -- and downtown Cape as a whole -- already has a lot of parking lots, but the way I look at it there's always room for just one more.

I sometimes wonder if there is a secret bet -- like the one dollar wagered by Mortimer and Randolph Duke in the movie Trading Places -- between the University and Southeast Hospital as to which institution can create more parking lots over a period of time.

I think The Dome currently is in the lead by a couple of acres. Southeast Hospital did go on an impressive expansion this past summer with parking lots in the 1800 block of Broadway and on nearby Sunset, but SEMO countered by paving over the entire north side of Broadway at Pacific.

Since I was thinking about parking lots, I started a mental tally of all the properties around Cape that have succumbed to the wrecking ball in the name of progress where progress is very often a synonym for "parking lot."

There's a bunch. Some have been historic or were architectural meritorious. Others were just buildings that happened to have been built on land that was coveted years later for other uses where uses is a very often a synonym for "parking lot."

But I don't begrudge either the University or Southeast Hospital for devouring swaths of Cape Girardeau for their respective expansions. That's progress and I've always been told that progress is good. And besides without progress and the uber acquisitive appetites of both of these institutions, I wouldn't be able to propose the following sure-fire, moneymaking tourist attraction for our fair city.

While Cape may not have dozens of historic or architecturally significant properties like Ste. Genevieve to the north, we have numerous locations where buildings of that sort used to be and have been re-imagined into other purposes where re-imagined is very often a synonym for "flattened" and purposes is very often a synonym for "parking lot."

I think we should aggressively promote The Historic Parking Lots of Cape Girardeau.

Visitors to Cape who don't have either the time or the desire to tour a bunch of dusty old buildings can take a fast drive around town and with the help of our Official Guidebook -- only $5.95 plus tax -- can see pictures of what was at various locations before progress occurred.

I feel this really targets a growing niche of the tourist market that wants to say they've been to a place -- like Cape Girardeau -- but not waste a lot of time getting in and out of their car.

It's kind of like speed dating. Speed Touristing we can call it.

And what's better suited to Speed Touristing and our automotive-based culture than being able to gawk at a bunch of parking lots where SOMETHING used to be. Cape can be on the cutting edge of tourism innovation and not have to spend a ton of money maintaining a bunch of creaky old firetraps.

Matter of fact, with all the money we will save not having to worry about leaky roofs (Ka-ching! ) or replacing HVAC systems or bowed out brick walls (Ka-ching! Ka-ching!) or -- God-forbid -- undertaking historically accurate restorations (Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!) we will be able to enhance the Cape Girardeau Speed Touristing Experience with things that really matter like knick-knack shops. Every one of our Historical Parking Lots could have one.

We can carry a stock of t-shirts and magnets emblazoned with our logo and of course, the Official Guidebook to Historic Parking Lots of Cape Girardeau -- only $5.95 plus tax. I've attached a rough draft of it to this blog as a preview along with a picture of a poster we plan to sell entitled "Progress."

I don't see these shops being very large. Actually, I'm thinking that they should be similar to the Fotomat stores that were common in the 1970s. They need to be just big enough for a decent amount of merchandise and a clerk.

Oh, and, of course, a drive thru window. That's a must for Speed Touristing.

Click here to see a preview of "The Official Guidebook of the Historic Parking Lots of Cape Girardeau"

Click here to see "Progress" based on an aerial photo from the 1950s.