by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Motorists heading north on Main Street squeeze through the City’s Springfield area down a two-lane corridor lined with orange cones. From First Street to Fourth there’s no parking on either side of the street. Bulldozers and road graders gouge the landscape, separating one of downtown’s busiest streets from the businesses that line its east side.
This is just what Louise DeSpain, president of the Springfield Preservation and Revitalization Council, had in mind. Although those Main Street businesses currently look about as accessible as a war zone, DeSpain says dug-up sidewalks and uprooted trees are a short-term price to pay for long-term progress.
“It’s an absolute mess,” said DeSpain. “We love it.”
To understand why, motorists need only look to Main Street’s west side. There, perfectly paved sidewalks are dotted with double-fixtured, 1950s-era streetlights. Plots of land have been set aside for palm trees that will soon overhang the sidewalks, shading pedestrians as they stroll past burgeoning boutiques and restaurants.
November will mark the completion of the first phase of the City’s Main Street Project. The City and State split a $4 million price tag to renovate the street’s first four blocks, running through Historic Springfield.
Spurred partially by the promise of the City’s revitalization efforts, DeSpain said, she receives daily calls from potential renters. Business tenants, developers, families — all have shown interest in becoming part of the revitalization of one of the City’s oldest residential areas that had fallen into disrepair since its early-1900s renaissance.
However, the City now finds itself looking for money to continue its efforts along Main Street. According to a letter from Transportation Secretary Aage Schroder received Sept. 16 by the City, the 2003 State legislative session left the project’s second phase without funding.
“The Department cannot fund any new requests under these guidelines for this project,” Schroder says in the letter.
The State paid for about 53 percent of the project’s first phase, contributing $2.1 million to the City’s $1.9 million. Now the City must find funding for the twice-as-large second phase.
In a draft letter to DeSpain, City Neighborhood Services Division Chief Lorrie DeFrank said “it is now unlikely” that Fourth through Twelfth streets will be renovated by 2004’s end, the original target date.
Although the Phase 2 design is finished, and the project’s completion remains a priority for the mayor, DeFrank said, “A funding source for the remainder of the project has yet to be identified.”
DeSpain said she thought the new administration was committed to the project. She said the Springfield Preservation and Revitalization Council had set up a Main Street Funding Committee to “keep constant contact with the mayor’s office and make sure the project stays a priority.”
For now and the foreseeable future, the traffic cones, the heavy equipment, the churned-up earth aren’t going anywhere at the intersection of Fourth and Main. The level sidewalks give way to broken concrete, palm trees are replaced by utility poles. But DeSpain says the Main Street Project is only one aspect of Springfield’s continuing turnaround.
“We’re a diverse community; that’s one of our main advantages,” said DeSpain. “We’re seeing galleries open, restaurants moving in, less slum housing, less rental units and more family housing. It’s all contributed to increased interest in Springfield.
“We have a saying around here: If you haven’t seen Springfield lately, then you haven’t seen Springfield.”