Downtown plan includes parking, residential development, family activities

Parking, residential development, a science center and a skate park all could be on the horizon for Cape Girardeau in the next 10 years if the city's updated downtown strategic plan comes to fruition.

Consulting firm Arcturis presented the plan Thursday.

The plan covers eight sections of downtown, including multiple sections of Main Street; Broadway; Fountain Street near the Southeast Missouri State University River Campus; and a corridor south of downtown that includes Good Hope, Sprigg, Frederick and Morgan Oak streets.

The city hired Arcturis to help it update the plan for $66,800.

Ideas included in the 10-year plan were an apartment building and parking garage on the north side of the Broadway and Main Street intersection; 24-unit and three-story lofts near the new federal courthouse; a science center on South Main Street; and a skate park on North Main Street.

"(Visitors) want to go to some place with a sense of place and a sense of character," Arcturis director Russ Volmert said. "Downtown has that."

The strategic plan is an extension of the 2009 downtown plan that helped foster the Marquette Tech District investment and build up Broadway with more commercial activity, Volmert said.

"One day, this street will surprise people," Volmert said of Broadway in its 2009 incarnation. "There were a lot of vacant lots, soft property. Now there's the bridal shop; the Biergarten; Minglewood; Vasterling Suites; the monster new investment of Marquette Tech."

Volmert said many people have expressed concerns about parking downtown, which Arcturis has tried to address in each section of the strategic plan.

The area of Spanish Street in front of the Common Pleas Courthouse is being suggested for parking spaces.

The parking lot at the corner of Broadway and Main Street could become a garage and include much more parking.

That area -- regardless of the different ideas, such as a welcome pavilion meant to be a new city landmark -- would include parking accommodations.

In four areas, proposed residential development would be designed to include parking.

In those areas, Arcturis is proposing three mixed-use spaces, three single-family attached spaces, two mixed-use spaces with retail or commercial, two senior-housing spaces, two multifamily spaces, one mixed-use office residential space and one residential space.

Housing would fit different markets.

In the Good Hope, Sprigg, Frederick and Morgan Oak streets area, housing would be meant for entry-level professionals.

The lofts in the Independence, Fredrick, Fountain and Middle streets corridor would be high-end.

St. Louis-based Development Strategies will provide economic advice on the feasibility of housing and development and potential tax credits available for the projects.

"We're looking at great ideas with great potential, as long was we can find the money to pay for them," said former councilman Tom Neumeyer, who owns a bed-and-breakfast on Lorimier Street. "People here are dreaming."

bkleine@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3644

Pertinent address:

339 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.