The regular lunch crowd waiting to enter Crown Candy Kitchen at North 14th Street and St. Louis Avenue may soon find another reason to visit the block.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony is set for July 29 to launch the fully renovated Crown Square, a residential and commercial development in the 2600 and 2700 blocks of North 14th.
The development, offering 80 residential units and 35,000 square feet of commercial and retail uses, spans 27 buildings and 2½ acres of green space.
The developers, two nonprofit community groups, are optimistic the $35 million project will bring more traffic to that once-booming north St. Louis neighborhood and help lead a renaissance for the area.
"This is the biggest project that we’ve ever been involved with," said Sean Thomas, executive director of the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group, which teamed up with the Regional Housing and Community Development Alliance.
"It is very close to being ready," Thomas said. "Work to reopen the street is the last component to be finished."
In fact, those two blocks of North 14th will be reopened to vehicular traffic for the first time in 33 years. The buildings there had fronted on a failed pedestrian mall since 1977, when urban planners believed that was the best way to attract business to the neighborhood.
However, prospective shoppers and clients of businesses along what was called the 14th Street Mall didn’t like parking behind the buildings and having to walk around to the front doors.
So most businesses along the pedestrian mall eventually closed.
In 2005, the Regional Housing and Community Development Alliance and Old North St. Louis Restoration Group decided to partner to redevelop the mall, which had become an eyesore.
The buildings were acquired over almost two years, from late 2005 through summer of 2007, for about $2 million, developers said.
Funding for the project came from a variety of sources. The development alliance provided a $2 million predevelopment loan. Another $12 million came from state and federal tax credits, and the rest through individual and institutional contributions.
Thomas said he was especially encouraged about the development’s prospects because nearly 70 of 80 housing units in the redevelopment area already have been leased to tenants.
"The challenge now is in leasing out the commercial spaces," he said. "But we have been getting a lot of interest. We want to get them out here to see it and look at the possibilities."
At least one restaurant and some retail businesses are in discussions with real estate agents for the developers, Thomas said.
Two new businesses already have moved into Crown Square, even as the work continues outside on the street. Norah Ryan has opened her law office there, and Therapy, a women’s clothing store, is preparing for its grand opening soon.
Ryan said she was happy about deciding to move her office from Clayton to Crown Square.
"There’s a wonderful sense of community, and a lot of things are going on here," she said.
Ryan, who was familiar with the neighborhood, said the full impact of the redevelopment struck her while taking a friend on a driving tour of the city last fall. "I thought, ‘Wow! That’s pretty neat.’"
And she said her new office was just the right size for her law practice, at about 900 square feet of renovated space.
Thomas acknowledged that a fear of crime has kept some businesses and clients away from the neighborhood for years. But he noted that crime rates in the area had gone down in recent years, and that many of the area’s residents were actively involved in Neighborhood Watch and other programs to keep the area safe.
Thomas said he could foresee a day when the development would rival the neighborhood’s heyday of the 1920s through the early 1950s. In addition to small businesses, that stretch of North 14th once had the first J.C. Penney store in the St. Louis area, he said, adding that the area also had Woolworths and J.J. Newberry’s five-and-dime stores.
"You could argue that this was the main street of a small town, and it could become that way again," he said.
E.M. Harris Construction Co., based in St. Louis, began work on the residential part of Crown Square late in 2007. Restoration of the commercial buildings began in 2008. The project was named in honor of Crown Candy Kitchen, which has anchored the neighborhood for years.
The buildings in Crown Square date from as old as 1860 to the 1920s. Developers restored each building to the era in which it was built, Thomas said.
"This project reflects what cities actually look like — they evolve and change over time," he said.
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