Making history on Water Street

Once the home of cavernous brick warehouses, Cape Girardeau's Water Street now draws tourists to its restaurants and colorful floodwall mural that paints the town's vivid past.

As city officials and downtown merchants look to turn Water Street into a one-way road and dress up the area with a decorative sidewalk and improved parking, the neighborhood has gained another point of attraction: Three contiguous, 19th-century brick buildings that now house Port Cape Girardeau restaurant have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Warehouse Row Historic District, one of four historic districts in the city.

The recognition came in December, along with eligibility for tax credits for property owner Dennis "Doc" Cain, who wants to further renovate the buildings.

But the national listing has been overshadowed by the public discussion about improving Water Street.

The city's Planning and Zoning Commission will review the proposed street improvements when it meets at 7 p.m. today at city hall.

The plan, favored by Mayor Jay Knudtson and some of the downtown merchants, calls for making Water Street one-way southbound, providing for angled parking on the east side of the street, constructing a patterned concrete or brick paver sidewalk and a reading rail with information about the local history depicted in each of the floodwall mural panels.

Water Street would be closed off north of Broadway with a landscaped area with walk paths and two parking space for the handicapped, city planner Kent Bratton said.

The clock in the center of the Main and Themis streets intersection will remain.

The Main Street parking lot south of Independence Street also would be redesigned to allow for better entrance and exit from the lot.

A final decision on the changes rests with the city council.

Cain, who owns Port Cape Girardeau restaurant, said improvements to Water Street will add to a downtown landscape already enhanced by the mural. The construction work, Cain said, should be done this spring.

Downtown merchants will pay for the Water Street improvements, the mayor said, although the city may help pay for reconfiguring the Main Street parking lot. City officials aren't sure how much it will cost.

Tax credit boost

The cost of improving Cain's Port Cape Girardeau buildings gets a boost from the structures' official historic status.

The federal government provides tax credits equal to 20 percent of eligible renovation expenses while state tax credits are calculated at 25 percent of the cost, which has yet to be determined, said historic preservationist Terri Foley of Cape Girardeau, who researched the buildings and wrote up the application for historic status.

The three buildings with their thick, brick walls include a three-story structure at the corner of Themis and Water streets, bordered to the south by a two-story structure and a one-story building.

Reasons for preserving the approximately 140-year-old buildings are numerous, Foley said.

"The Warehouse Row District includes the only remaining adjoined pre-1900 commercial warehouse buildings in Cape Girardeau," Foley said. The brick buildings were built in the early 1860s, she said.

It's rumored that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant used the buildings for his headquarters in his brief stay in Cape Girardeau during the Civil War. But Foley thinks that's unlikely since Grant already was head of the Union Army in Virginia by 1864.

Cain wants to use state and federal tax credits to renovate the structures' brick exteriors and do some interior work. Cain eventually wants to renovate the third floor of the main building into a banquet room.

Today, the worn, wooden floor on the third floor is covered with broken restaurant chairs and other discarded items. Some of its massive ceiling beams remain blackened by a 1916 fire.

A huge pulley system that hauled warehouse merchandise to the top floor sits boarded up in a corner. Cain eventually wants to restore the antique machinery.

Cain cites the Marquette Hotel, around a corner and up Broadway, as a perfect example of well-used tax credits. The 77-year-old building reopened as office space last year. It's because a developer could take advantage of tax credits, Cain said.

"Without tax credits, it would be nothing but junk over there," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123