Downtown: Exciting times ahead with foundation built over time

The announcement that came a couple of weeks ago was just the latest: Five new tenants will be moving into the Marquette Tech district, a key aspect of a major redevelopment of the Marquette Tower and the H-H building on Broadway in downtown Cape Girardeau. They include two health-tech businesses (tenants of Codify), the CVB and the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce; and Creative Edge, a video production company.

The developers, Mayson Capital Partners of Cape Girardeau, are betting big on downtown Cape. To restore the Marquette building to usefulness and bring in a Mariott Hotel to neighboring H-H, is a big, long job. Invigorating, for sure. But also risky.

But what shouldn’t be lost in the recent excitement is the slow and steady development that preceded the Marquette plans.

“We build an enviroment where businesses want to be,” said Marla Mills, Old Town Cape executive director.

The Vasterling building. The repair-garage-turned-office space. The Broadway reconstruction. Storefront after storefront. The casino, of course. The Broadway Federal. The new Rust & Martin building. Catapult. The Center for Excellence in Mass Media next to the Southeast Missourian and rustmedia. The list of downtown Cape improvements goes on and on.

More recent improvements include the Indie House, a Laurie Everett project; and a handful of improvements already completed or in the works by Kenny Pincksten and Jason Coalter.

“It’s part of being a hometown boy,” Pinckston told reporter Brown, when speaking of his plans to renovate a blighted house on Spanish Street.

So much work has gone on behind the scenes that it’s impossible to list every person who has been involved in the downtown resurgence. Old Town Cape, the city, university and chamber have certainly been instrumental.

Downtown is an active, thriving place these days. It’s already been transformed. But there is so much more potential yet to be realized.

We tip our caps to those who have rolled up their sleeves in downtown Cape, and we salute those who continue to invest their money, time and, yes, love, into the community by the river.