Amazing things are happening along Cherokee Street in South City, especially the long dormant stretch between Jefferson and Gravois.
Yesterday, I took a detour from my regular Gravois-route to downtown, taking the trip across the State Streets along the historic Cherokee commercial corridor. The amount of current investment activity is amazing.
A new restaurant is readying for its opening in the long-shuddered Eisele's Black Forest space. The outside seating area of a sidewalk cafe was filled to capacity. Long vacant storefronts are being rehabbed for new tenants.
That familiar presence in a neighborhood in renewal - a Friedman Group real estate sign - stands in front of a glazed brick, one story commercial building. On this beautiful spring day, Cherokee Street showed much of the hustle and bustle you find in many Miami, Florida neighborhoods.
With nearly all of its original, mixed-use, brick buildings still standing (and in solid condition), and the new Jefferson-Gravois Streetcar Suburb Historic District leveraging quality rehab investments, look for Cherokee Street and the neighborhoods around it to be among the big St. Louis success stories for the next five to ten years.
2 comments:
Looks like great minds think alike. Cherokee Street and its new energy are the subjects of the most recent podcast on MayorSlay.com
http://www.mayorslay.com/podcasts/
PE
I agree - Cherokee is exciting!
I just wish we could get all the different players and groups working together instead of against each other!
What might help is if there was a charismatic figure like Joe Edwards to advocate for the street. Instead, we have old-timer obstructionists like Shirley Wallace seemingly running the show.
(sigh)
But it's coming along, anyway, despite that.
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