Downtown businesses reflect on Broadway Corridor Project one year after its completion

Nearly a year has passed since the Broadway Corridor Project was completed, offering visitors of Cape Girardeau's downtown a wider road, promenade sidewalks with benches and bike racks, updated light fixtures and aesthetic pieces such as trees and flower beds.

A timeline of Broadway. (Graphic by Collin Smith)

The $4.7 million project began in May 2012 and stretched along Broadway from Pacific Street to North Main Street. Money for the project came from the city's voter-approved Transportation Trust Fund, a half-cent sales tax for transportation projects, and for amenities outside the scope of streetwork, from an agreement with the casino.

From April 2012 to September 2013, about 27 businesses along Broadway and Main Street opened and 14 closed, according to data from Marla Mills, executive director of Old Town Cape, a not-for-profit organization promoting the revitalization of downtown Cape Girardeau. The numbers include those businesses that opened or moved into the district, and those that closed or moved out of the district, Mills said. Since the beginning of Old Town Cape's quarter, three more businesses opened and a few more openings are on the horizon, Mills said.

City manager Scott Meyer said it is not uncommon to see businesses open and close in any part of the city.

"That's just kind of part of the retail markets," Meyer said. "You know, they kind of ebb and flow, and people come and go. It's a tough business. If it wasn't everyone would be doing it."

An old trolley rail awaits removal from the intersection of Broadway and Lorimier Street by a Fronabarger Concreters crew May 4, 2012. FRED LYNCHflynch@semissourian.com

Among the businesses that closed was Buckner Brewing Co., 132 N. Main St., which has been vacant since.

Other buildings along the Broadway Corridor remain as very large, very visible empty spaces. The Esquire Theater, 824 Broadway, has stood empty since its closing in 1984. The theater is on the Cape Girardeau Historic Preservation Commission's 2013 Endangered Buildings List, and repair work on the building is underway. The Royal N'Orleans, 300 Broadway, closed in June 2009 and also has remained vacant.

Some Broadway business owners have ridden the ups and downs for decades, such as Scott Shivelbine, part owner of the family-run business that has occupied its 535 Broadway location since 1969. Shivelbine said the Broadway Corridor Project was a positive improvement and now "Cape's got everyone beat," when compared to surrounding cities' downtown areas.

"It was very much needed," he said of the project. "It looked terrible. It'd been hodge-podged for over 100 years."

Robbie Britt and his wife recently opened a permanent location for their business, Dynamite Coffee, which frequented the Riverfront Market on Saturday mornings.

The ribbon is cut Oct. 31, 2012, in honor of the completion of the $4.5 million Broadway corridor project. LAURA SIMON lsimon@semissourian.com

Now stationed at 206 Independence St., Britt said the Broadway Corridor Project acted as a catalyst for surrounding business owners in downtown to take more pride in their businesses and storefronts. Whether it's as simple as washing windows or picking up trash around their property, he said owners now are taking more initiative.

"I think all that is just the result of the culmination of that seed being planted of that project," Britt said.

Britt has noticed more foot traffic and an upbeat, positive atmosphere among patrons and business owners in an area that now has more substance, more options and more things to do. Downtown is turning a corner, he said.

Sustainable businesses

The businesses opening downtown are more sustainable every year, Mills said, and the survival rate of the businesses is increasing.

Southeast Missourian file (This photo, published Jan. 15, 1969, shows saturation traffic in the downtown section of Broadway. The crowding was often the rule, even during non-rush period.)

"Many more of them are stronger and have a better chance of survival than the percentages in the past" and year after year, more of them are staying open, she said.

Another business that has held down its fort on Broadway for a few decades is Horizon Screen Printing at 430 Broadway.

General manager Dru Reeves said he also has noticed several buildings surrounding the business have gone from looking "terrible for years" to being upgraded and "dressed to attract."

As for the Broadway Corridor Project, Reeves thinks it could have been done differently.

"It needed to be done, it was a question of how it was done," he said, recalling that there were two options for the project, the other including the same plans for parking and sidewalks for the north and south side of the street. Broadway today features a sidewalk with brick-paved parking on the south side of the street and a promenade sidewalk with no parking on the north side of the street. Horizon Screen Printing is on the north side of Broadway. Reeves also expressed concerns of the trees planted in the promenade sidewalk, speaking of one planted in front of the business' sign. The city has come to trim the tree back, he said.

Southeast Missourian archive (The 400 block of Broadway is seen in 1929.)

Overall, the Broadway Corridor Project has not negatively affected business to point where he can tell, Reeves said.

Parking changes

A concern addressed in the past related to the Broadway Corridor Project was the elimination of 64 parking spaces on the north side of Broadway from Pacific to Water streets.

City engineer Casey Brunke on Monday said parking lots where the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors' Bureau formerly stood and behind Last Call and Broadway Prescription Shop are complete.

The city on Oct. 21 voted to allow sidewalk cafes on several downtown streets, which is an opportunity Meyer said the city works to provide businesses, along with the addition of parking.

Traffic on Broadway moves east toward the river from Pacific Street on March 23, 2012. FRED LYNCHflynch@semissourian.com

"It's really our job as the government to provide opportunity," he said. "It's not really our job to tell private business owners and landowners what to do with it."

It is not just the Broadway Corridor Project that has improved downtown business, several sources said -- it's the culmination of the project and other factors such as Isle Casino Cape Girardeau, the work of Old Town Cape, shooting of the feature film "Gone Girl" along with the investment of downtown business owners that has worked to improve downtown Cape Girardeau.

"What makes [downtown] more sustainable is that we're not built on just one piece," Mills said. "It's putting all of those together that's going to make us successful and going to make us sustainable."

Enough people want the quality items that downtown Cape Girardeau can offer, and business entrepreneurs are responding to the need and taking risk to make it work, Britt said.

The doors have been opened, and people are responding, he said.

ashedd@semissourian.com

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Pertinent address:

Broadway and North Main Street, Cape Girardeau, MO

Broadway and North Pacific Street, Cape Girardeau, MO