Old Town Cape to host open house at Ivers Square

Old Town Cape will host an open house Friday at Ivers Square to promote a proposed project to renovate the site and encourage people to vote in an online contest that could fund the improvements.

Music by Jerry Ford’s Dixieland Band will be featured at the open house, which begins at 6 p.m., along with refreshments and information about the proposed renovation, said Marla Mills, executive director of the Old Town Cape downtown revitalization organization.

Mills said Cape Girardeau is the only Missouri town in the running for the contest’s preservation grant money.

The Cape Girardeau City Council renamed Common Pleas Courthouse Park in June in honor of James Ivers, a former slave who served as a Union soldier in the Civil War, and his wife, Harriet.

No signage exists to indicate the name change, and other structures in the square need attention.

“Ivers Square still doesn’t resonate with a lot of people,” Mayor Harry Rediger said earlier this week.

City and community leaders hope to change that situation.

Cape Girardeau is one of 25 communities nationwide competing for grants from Partners in Preservation, a community-based partnership created by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express to raise awareness of the importance of preserving historic places.

The Partners in Preservation: Main Streets campaign will provide up to $150,000 in private grant funding to the top 10 communities based on online voting, which continues through the end of the month.

Rediger said Ivers Square supporters should “vote early and often.”

Votes can be cast at www.VoteYourMainStreet.org.

mbliss@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3641

Pertinent address:

Ivers Square, Cape Girardeau, Mo.