Downtown - lots that's positive going on

By C.P. McGinty Jr.

I want to thank the members of the editorial board of the Southeast Missourian for their concern about the riverboat travelers' dilemma of nowhere to shop on Sunday mornings in historic downtown Cape Girardeau.

I suppose, in a perfect world, all of the 139 family-owned and operated stores and service businesses on Broadway and in downtown Cape Girardeau would open on Sunday to take advantage of the boat people who want to go shopping. We are there for them on 16 out of 24 visits, and we certainly welcome the excitement and enthusiasm generated. But surely you can't fault us for choosing to be closed on a riverboat Sunday.

Look. We cherish our downtown. It's our livelihood. But we also cherish our day off, which for most stores is Sunday.

As far as good business sense is concerned, it takes a lot more revenue than the amount the boat people spend to cover the expenses of just being open, whatever the day. We might consider being open on Sunday during the Christmas season. That would make better business sense. We are sorry our river guests are not satisfied with the shopping on Sundays.

The second recommendation from the editorial is that we gather all the groups involved in improving downtown and attracting tourists and join forces and resources.

Several of the mentioned groups either have no resources or are suffering budget crunches or have even had their funding cut in half. Our hope for them is that the Old Town Cape group will eventually find a corporate benefactor with the available money to help these groups.

Specifically, let's look at the front porch and paint on the Glenn House. They are in urgent need of repair with very limited funding. Would anyone like to help?

Recent visible improvements the downtown area are primarily from the private sector. The Harris Building across from the First Presbyterian Church has been converted into very nice apartments with secured parking. A beautiful renovation project was just finished by Renaissance on the corner of Main and Broadway. Two new beauty shops are open. Port Cape has a new kitchen and is currently undergoing interior remodeling. Roger Lang is in the middle of remodeling Lang's Jewelers. The Key's Music Store building has been purchased, as well as the H&H Building. The new federal courthouse is on schedule, and strong consideration for using the Marquette Hotel is on the table. A roadway beautification project for the new entrance to downtown from the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge is being discussed by the Redevelopment Corp, which in collaboration with the Downtown Merchants Association is responsible for the John Boardman Pavilion, the brick crosswalks, the new light fixtures, seasonal banners, Christmas decorations and ornamental trees.

The merchants who seem to really care about downtown Cape Girardeau are dues-paying members of the Downtown Merchants Association. We pay for downtown cleanup, insurance on parking lots and the pavilion. We bring you the ever-popular Parade of Lights with over 110 entries. In part, we sponsor the City of Roses Music Festival, Old Town Cape, the fireworks on the Fourth of July, the chalk walk, the pub crawl on St. Patrick's Day, the scholarship program, the Guardians, Tour le Cape, the merchants auction, the mural association and support the Southeast Missouri State University Foundation.

We pay for advertising, installation and removal of seasonal lighting and banners, maintain the landscaping under the Wall of Fame, help with the Red House project, some utilities, pest control and tourism brochures that someone else ought to be paying for.

These are the basics, but there are some areas we just can't help, because we too will eventually run out of money.

In my opinion, considering our collaboration with these organizations and particularly the Redevelopment Corp., we have a very productive combination.

After all, because of the great response we get from all of our ads in the Southeast Missourian, things aren't really that bad in downtown Cape Girardeau.

C.P. McGinty Jr. is the president of the Downtown Merchants Association.