The Start of a Beautiful Renovation: Southeast Strategy Begins (Fingers Crossed)

Written by William Bryant Rozier

The chorus for the event, echoed at the Southeast Strategy kick-off event on Monday, October 21, 2019 in the former Kmart plaza, was man, this is a lot of people.  The planners of the event were guess-what surprised by all of the assembled Southeast siders who crammed into the room to hear the latest effort to rejuvenate the 46803, 46806, and 46816 zip codes.  They needed a bigger room.

There were catered food, games, and door prizes.  There was the left side of the wall where attendees could write their wish lists on Post-It notes and stick them up.  On a blue note, an attendee wrote: Southeast Recreational places for family/youth, clearly marked bike paths. Another wrote: Upgrade to the Weisser Park playground with a splash pad and an expansion to our bike paths with more lighting.  There were black-and-white maps for dot sticker placement, to answer the questions what is and what is not working?

Urban design and economic development consulting firm YARD & Company spent the rest of the week traversing the Southeast side, fielding more input from folks at Kroger and Optimistic’s Enterprise Beauty & Barber Salon and other random spots across the area.  The Southeast Strategy week culminated on Thursday, October 24, with another wrap-up event.  After four days, the Post-It notes were aligned on four sheets of papers in the shape of the letters FWSE.  There were future illustrations for what the corner of South Anthony and McKinnie could look like all rejuvenated-out.

There was a sense of hope at the kick-off and wrap-up events but that was belied with a sense of Nick-at-Nite rerun.  Folks are tired of what could be perceived as all talk, no action.  The same week of the Southeast Strategy events, a long sought for grocery store was announced for downtown and the comments section on Facebook, at least on my feed, lamented how the Southeast still gets the short shrift.

So what’s the action? Why is this time different?  Will the Southeast resemble more of the transformed city?  We have our small victories…Posterity Heights, for example.  As I rerun the headline from our all-food issue last year: Where’s the grand Southeast side restaurant and grocery store since we’re asking?