Broadway business owners celebrate completion of street project

Broadway business owners, who struggled through a summer of construction, celebrated Wednesday that the $4.41 million street project is now complete.

They say they're encouraged and excited to see their neighbors taking the initiative to paint or put up new signs in an effort to upgrade their own businesses. Improvements on Broadway are contagious and spreading upward from the new street and sidewalks to the tip tops of the buildings that line it.

"It is just jubilation," said Robert Gentry, who operates The Corner Grocery Store with his wife, Mary. "It has been a challenge to all the merchants down on Broadway, but we were just talking about how these six or seven months, in hindsight, went very quickly."

He said the process was challenging at times, but he admires his fellow merchants for staying strong and staying open. Businesses used back entrances and signs, some set blocks away, to direct customers to their temporary entrances.

"The innovation and improvements on Broadway -- the widened sidewalks, the landscaping -- will encourage a lot of entrepreneurs to reconsider Broadway as a destination for their new businesses," Gentry said.

The $135 million Isle Casino Cape Girardeau, which opened Tuesday, will also help bring more traffic down Broadway and create opportunities for new businesses, Gentry said.

Six new businesses have opened on Broadway since construction began: Philanthropy, Arevalo Photography, Sweet Design Boutique, Red Line Motorsports, Relentless Media and Budget Buster Furniture. Isle of Capri also temporarily located its offices in the Marquette building on Broadway as construction on its casino and the Broadway corridor continued.

Eleven buildings have either been updated or are now undergoing upgrades, said Old Town Cape executive director Marla Mills. These include the Vasterling Building at the corner of North Sprigg Street and Broadway, the former hotel building that houses Philanthropy, Bob's Shoe, Annie Laurie's Antiques and SEMO Laundry.

It's difficult to quantify just how many buildings have undergone improvements, because building permits are not required for things such as changing windows or doors, painting, tuck pointing brick or replacing siding, said Cape Girardeau Inspection Services director Tim Morgan.

Nancy Jernigan, executive director of the United Way of Southeast Missouri, whose office has been on Broadway for about six years, said she can already tell a difference in the attitude and pride among Broadway businesses.

"What has been so exciting to me is seeing people on ladders, painting, fixing up. I really do think the stores will start to fill up and it will just get better from here," Jernigan said.

Jernigan said the trees planted along Broadway are her favorite aspect of the improvement and have enhanced the street's look immensely.

"They have made all the difference. When you look down the street, your eyes go to the street, not that ugly empty building," she said. "It's just really, really attractive."

Jernigan said the loss of parking spaces hasn't been a problem for the United Way, although they can no longer load supplies in front of their office because there are not parking spaces on that side of the street.

"It's all worth it for progress," she said.

Lee Schlitt, co-owner of Broadway Prescription Shop, said his business' sales actually went up over the summer months during and despite the construction. Some of that he attributes to the media attention the Broadway project has been getting.

"Between what's going on on Broadway and the farmers market [on Spanish Street], that's what people are talking about. There is a high energy. Things are happening. It's exciting and people want to be down here," Schlitt said. "People want to shop where there is some culture and some atmosphere and you don't get that at big box stores on the west side of Cape."

mmiller@semissourian.cxom

388-3646

Pertinent address:

Broadway and North Main Street, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Broadway and North Pacific Street, Cape Girardeau, Mo.