Cape clock has become symbol of downtown improvement

Downtown Cape Girardeau has been keeping time by the clock at Main and Themis streets for 25 years now. It was designed to be a focal point for downtown and a throwback to the area's French-inspired 19th-century architecture. It was one of the first projects funded by the city's Special Business District.

"It has surprised me how the clock has become the iconic symbol of downtown," said Kent Zickfield, owner of Zickfield's Jewelry. "If you see a picture of downtown Cape, most of the time the clock is always the central focus. It's the one thing everybody recognizes."

Dave Hutson, co-owner of Hutson's Fine Furniture on Main Street, said he often uses the clock to guide customers to his store.

"They say: 'Where's your store?' I say, 'You know where the clock is? Go a block-and-a-half south,'" he said.

The clock was part of an early 1980s vision to redevelop a downtown that was struggling. Many stores moved or just closed when West Park Mall opened in 1981. Downtown was dotted with vacant storefronts. Some stores that remained were covering the downtown's historic buildings with new, modern facades that detracted from area's overall look.

Installed in 1986, the clock cost $27,000.

"We basically wanted to create an area that was modern but accentuated the roots," said Zickfield, who serves as chairman of the Downtown Redevelopment Corp., the entity that oversees how Special Business District tax revenue is spent.

The Special Business District covers Spanish, Main and Water streets from Merriwether Street north to Bellevue Street. Property owners within the district have paid additional property taxes to fund improvements in the area since 1983.

The district's tax rate is 67.08 cents per $100 assessed valuation, which generates about $20,000 each year.

But even before the Special Business District was in place, downtown Cape Girardeau merchants had a history of pulling together to fund improvements.

They pooled resources to purchase parking lots and raised money for streetlights in the 1970s, but Zickfield said they knew they needed a steady source of income to make downtown the destination they envisioned.

Once the tax began generating revenue in 1984, the Downtown Redevelopment Corp. hired a St. Louis architecture firm, Lehne & Gantz, to create a plan for downtown.

"We followed this plan very close for years," Zickfield said.

It emphasized the area's 19th-century architecture. In addition to the clock, it suggested old-fashioned streetlights with banners hanging from them, decorative brick pavers, planting trees and requiring more uniform signage.

When bids for new streetlights came in too expensive, Zickfield remembers, Hutson's father Charles walked up the street to his store to talk about the project. At that time, Main Street had gray, concrete light poles with white, cube-shaped bulb covers. A few old-style poles were purchased for downtown intersections.

"He said he didn't know where we were going to get the money for the new poles, and I said, 'Charlie, why don't we just paint the damn poles green until we can afford to replace all the poles?' Well, that was 25 years ago, and we're still using the same poles."

After all the poles were repainted, old-fashioned lamps replaced the cube-shaped lights and they remain in use today.

The group also paid to have utility poles along Main Street taken down and those lines relocated underground, Zickfield said. Through the years, a number of benches, trash cans and trees and tree grates have been funded by the Special Business District tax, as have improvements at the Main and Broadway parking lot and the parking lot on Main Street across from Hutson's.

The Boardman Pavilion, in that parking lot, was another Special Business District-funded project.

Many projects were done in partnership with the city, including helping to finance the development of the riverfront park between the river and the floodwall. The group also contributed toward floodwall mural projects through the years.

In recent years most of the Special Business District funds have gone to maintain decorative lighting, Hutson said. When an uninsured motorist hit a downtown light pole or a stop sign, the Special Business District has to foot the bill to repair or replace it.

Hutson serves as the unofficial caretaker of the clock, said Marla Mills, executive director of Old Town Cape, the organization that pays the electric bill to keep it running.

Whether it's a minor electrical repair or a decorative bollard that's been struck by a car, Hutson is the one who is called in.

"If we get a call that the clock's not working, Dave's the one who gets up there on a ladder and tinkers with it until it's going again," Mills said.

Hutson and Zickfield are both now involved in an effort to expand the work of the Special Business District to a broader area of downtown. They both serve on the steering committee for a Community Improvement District that would create a new sales and property tax to fund improvement projects in much larger area of downtown. The proposed area would be the existing Special Business District as well as Broadway from West End Boulevard to the riverfront; a section of Sprigg Street; and portions of Spanish, Morgan Oak and Good Hope streets. If a new Community Improvement District is established, the existing Special Business District would dissolve. The committee plans to present a petition for a Community Improvement District to the city council later this summer.

To celebrate the clock's 25th birthday, Old Town Cape will hold a birthday celebration at 5:30 p.m. today at Main and Themis streets. The event will have hot dogs, cupcakes and music by Jerry Ford. A special birthday hat has also been made to sit atop the clock.

"It's not just about the clock. It's a way to celebrate all the Special Business District has accomplished," Mills said.

mmiller@semissourian.com

388-3646

Pertinent address:

Main Street, Cape Girardeau, MO