IN DEPTH:

From the January 28, 2005 print edition

<A HREF="http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/ ... ">Robinson, Ulmer invest in north St. Louis projects</A>

Laurie Sybert



Marteese Robinson and Dan Ulmer are among the individuals investing their money in redevelopment efforts in near north St. Louis neighborhoods -- an area many call the next hot area for revitalization.



<A HREF="http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/ ... ocus9.html">>>> read more</A>

Great article. I expect to be seeing more articles like it in the future. This area is primed to explode.

That restaurant owner really has some balls - which is great. It's awesome to see someone taking a risk on a forlorn neighborhood, and I really hope it pays off!

I actually told my dad that we should open a pizza place in North City. He was kind of lukewarm about it. Wanted to wait for the neighborhood a little longer.

As a north sider, I love to see new restaurants opening up here. It doesn't happen with the frequency that is does downtown or southside, but it appears that we are not forgotten. Crown Candy is great, but a little variety can't hurt either. One of the downsides living here is the serious lack of services. MattnStl tell your dad pizza's not a bad idea, and I'd like to see a lot more people up here.

Building on brickandmortar's post, Crown Candy could/should be the anchor for future retail development in ONSL. Opening a restaurant such as a pizza parlor in very close proximity to CC would be a much more calculated risk than opening in say, JeffVanderLou or The Ville. People are willing to go WAY out of their way to visit CC, and I'm kind of surprised that the neighborhood doesn't have more businesses, just based on that. Maybe an antique shop, an art gallery, a vintage clothing store, etc. would be a good addition to the neighborhood, and would siphon off of the CC customers - they could spend an entire afternoon in ONSL instead of just an hour for lunch. Maybe if there were additional restaurants there, someone would come and enjoy a slice of pizza at Matt's pizza parlor, for instance, and then walk over to CC for a milkshake.



If only the 14th Street mall was torn up to allow through traffic again, maybe that would help.

DeBaliviere wrote:If only the 14th Street mall was torn up to allow through traffic again, maybe that would help.

The 14th st. mall is probably one of the best chances of creating a vibrant commercial district given its location to CC and the new housing project happening down the street. It would be interesting to see how many of those buildings can be saved (hopefully all)