Old Town Cape grant recipients spruce up downtown

Seven downtown Cape Girardeau businesses are the newest recipients of the Old Town Cape 2024 Façade Improvement Grant.

The grant was designed to improve the appearance and curb appeal of downtown Cape Girardeau buildings, aiming to stimulate economic development and improve community pride. This could be done by installing awnings, signs, lighting and/or paint and other renovation work. Downtown businesses had until July 31 to apply and were selected by a 12-member design committee.

“The Façade Improvement Grant is so important as it helps the small businesses and beautifies downtown Cape Girardeau. The design committee worked hard on allocating as much funding to help as many businesses as possible. These improvements will have a lasting effect on the health of our downtown,” Tori Holmes, Old Town Cape marketing coordinator and staff liaison to the design committee, said in an October news release.

The grants offered businesses up to $1,500 from a total of $7,500 available as reimbursement following installation of approved projects. Business owners had to submit proof of the work and its cost to receive a grant.

The awardees were the Broadway businesses Goose and Gander, Annie Laurie’s, Pagliai’s Pizza and Pasta, Kenny’s Flippin’ Burgers and Discovery Playhouse. Other recipients were The Library on Spanish Street and Catholic Charities of Southern Missouri on Main Street. They are required to have the work completed by the end of 2024, and some businesses have already done so.

Laurie Everett, owner of Annie Laurie’s, used her share of the grant for the removal of a concrete façade covering sandstone blocks on a retaining wall.

“Moving forward in the future, probably in the spring, I will look toward resurfacing myself some of the sandstones that are out there and probably painting it,” she said. “Obviously, with old historic buildings, there are a lot of projects that come up but that fit within the parameters of what could be approved within the grant.”

She said it had been a project she had thought about for a while, but with the aid of the grant she was finally able to get started.

Casey Stuart, owner of Kenny’s Flippin’ Burgers, said her business used the grant on a yellow and white neon sign that will be installed by her restaurant by mid-November.

“It will just give the business a little more visibility as people are driving by instead of just a sign on the window,” she said.

Josh Green, general manager of Goose and Gander, said their project cost less than $2,000, so they didn’t even need the maximum allotment from the grant. The store completed the renovations in the summer.

“We opened this year, so what we did is put the signage in the front window, the big goose and gander on the left-hand side of the building and the wording on the door. Then we also put the awning on the building. Before, it was just a metal shell,” he said.

The Façade Improvement Grant is offered yearly by Old Town Cape.

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