'Hope for Good Hope': Redevelopment project could spark neighborhood improvement, officials say

A plan to redevelop two blighted Good Hope Street buildings for retail/office space and apartments and improve a vacant lot could serve as “a catalyst for the entire block,” Cape Girardeau development services director Alex McElroy said.

“I think it sounds very exciting,” he added.

The city council is set to vote on a resolution Monday night to execute a development agreement with Alliant Development LLC to rehabilitate two dilapidated brick buildings at 631 and 635 Good Hope St. and a vacant lot between them.

Mayor Harry Rediger called it “a great jump-start” for economic development in the neighborhood.

“I think there is additional hope for Good Hope,” he said.

With the Southeast Missouri State University River Campus on the east and this proposed development to the west, Rediger said he believes this has the potential to spark “future development” in the area.

Rather than seek to raze the structures, city officials are taking a new approach with the old buildings.

Under this strategy, property owner Jeremy Ford, who lives in California, has agreed to donate the property to the developer. A tax lien on the property would be transferred to the developer, city officials said.

A dilapidated building once stood on the vacant lot. But that structure partially collapsed in 2014. The city removed the structure and levied a $51,684 tax lien on the property, officials explained.

If the developer completes the project within four years, the city would waive the tax lien under the agreement, McElroy said.

That would give the developer time to seek historic tax credits for the project, he said.

“The properties are listed with the National Register of Historic Places and are situated in a prominent area of downtown, which needs attention,” he wrote.

Largely settled by German immigrants, the area contained shops, offices, taverns and boardinghouses by the turn of the 20th century.

The buildings at 631 and 635 Good Hope were erected about 1880, according to National Register documentation.

The city advertised for development proposals earlier this summer.

Alliant, which consists of Dille Traxel Architecture and its Property Pro Facility Managememt company, and Gramblin Lumber, submitted the only proposal, McElroy said. Together, the development group employs licensed architects, construction professionals and building-management specialists, he said in an agenda report to the council.

Under the proposal, the first floor of the 635 Good Hope St. building would be renovated with the intent to lease the space as a retail store or a small restaurant or coffee shop, McElroy said.

Three additional, small retail spaces are available at the rear of that address, which could be combined for first-floor tenant use or leased separately, he said.

The second story of the building, at the corner of Good Hope and Sprigg streets, would house the Dille Traxel firm, McElroy said. Dille Traxel has its office on Mount Auburn Road.

The top floor could be used as additional office space for the architecture firm or a small apartment, McElroy wrote in the agenda report.

McElroy said the building at 631 Good Hope St. “appears to be much more deteriorated.”

The proposal calls for renovating the first floor as a “pedestrian friendly lease space.” The two upper levels would be rehabilitated into apartment units, he said.

The third phase of the project would involve improvements to the vacant lot. McElroy said the developer has no concrete plans. The developer proposed the area “could be come a well-maintained green space, a patio for tenants of the buildings, a sunken patio for access to the basement levels for potential lease or even infill building construction,” McElroy said.

Final plans for the lot will be determined once the other renovations have been completed, he said.

The project is in line with the city’s downtown strategic plan, according to McElroy.

He welcomed the architecture firm’s plan to relocate its offices to one of the buildings, adding that means the company “will be invested” in maintaining the property.

mbliss@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3641

Pertinent address:

631 Good Hope St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.

633 Good Hope St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.

635 Good Hope St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.