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After the recent two-way streetscaping conversion, Gay Street quickly has become the gem of Downtown with new restaurants, businesses, and residences flocking to the area. And a quick stroll down the sidewalk this morning reveals that even more is on the way.
We previously mentioned that J. Gumbo’s would be taking over the old Skambo space at 31 E. Gay Street, and a lot of progress has been made to the interior in the past few weeks.
In the space next door, the Faithfully Yours Childcare service currently located in the back of the building is expanding around to the front retail space.
One more unit down at 37 E. Gay Street also has a “coming soon” sign for a business called Shine Me Up, which will provide shoe repairs, footwear sales, foot massages, and some convenience store items.
Right next door to Tip Top, in the window of a recently closed hair salon, there is now a “coming soon” sign for The Plantain Cafe. The sign doesn’t provide many details other than their slogan: A Taste of Cuba.
And lastly, as a bit of a non-update, no progress appears to have been made on the space that was said a year ago to become a new Zen Cha Tea Salon. Not sure if it’s too early to consider that project abandoned, but I imagine with so many other spaces filling in that it won’t sit empty for too long.
Now that Gay Street is filling in, should it be time to consider the next couple of Downtown streets for two-way streetscaping conversions? How about Main Street? Or Long Street? Or Fourth Street? Or the rest of Front Street? Bring on the renovations!
Columbusite: Great thoughtful data comparison between Morse & Gay projects. Bravo! :D
Morse Rd still has half a year, to be fair in the comparison, but I never make it up there (too far and I’d have to bike across a highway interchange) and couldn’t find anything on the progress of the “Northland Village” concept. Only talk about it dragging and that was from ’08. Surely someone else who is more familiar with Morse Rd (ie, have driven along there in the last year or so) can provide more info.
Zen Cha will be in the same spot on Gay.
I think Zach was well ahead of his time when he labeled this area of Downtown the “Latin District”, since the number of latino restaurants has doubled.
Definitely, the only difference between Gay Street and Morse Road is how complete streets were handled. No socio-economic issues between them at all, they’re practically identical.
I’d imagine that plenty of landowners and building owners along Morse Road have money to spend on redevelopment.
I think you have to wait for Phase 2 of Morse Road to be done a year from now to make any comparisons. Phase 2 is east of Karl Rd which is where the frontage is for the Northland site. Menards is building a big box. I am looking forward to the bike lanes.
An update through the grapevine about The Plantain Cafe: They’re going to be a sit down cafe serving authentic Cuban eats during lunch time only. They’re aiming to be open by October.
Just a correction, I’m pretty sure that Gay St. pic in the slideshow is mine. You can credit it under “Keith Morris” instead of Columbusite.
Kinda bummed to hear yet another place only staying open for lunch. Oh well, more business for those that keep their doors open later then.
Fixed the photo credit. ;)
Perhaps the Plantain Cafe will change their hours if there is demand for it.
I was about to say. I really don’t expect a business in a market like downtown to do anything too risky that may put them out in a short time. Better to have the infill and at least have people coming downtown some of the time than none. I’m sure they’ll probably catch on pretty quick that staying open later in the day, especially with the downtown festivals and other special events going on, is a good thing.
Of course we can always help that along by patronizing these places and asking about later hours.
i’m anxiously waiting to see if this will be a REAL cuban restaurant and not some americanized knock-off. living in miami i’m on withdraw from…. roast pork (shredded melt in ur mouth, juicy), real chimichurri, cafe con leche, rice and beans mixed moro (sp) style that’s cooked w/ ham hock etc, mariquitas w/ garlic lemon dipping sauce, and churrasco steak… !!!! i have to say though that Goya frozen sweet plantains are pretty damn good :)
The same grapevine that I posted about earlier also told me that the owner’s wife is Cuban, so hopefully that means that they will be somewhat authentic in their offerings. ;)