Parts of the city’s West Side have seen a slow turn-around over the past few years, an emergence from their often crime-ridden past, in large part due to the street-by-street work of private residents investing themselves and their money into the neighborhood they call home.
Citizens have formed organizations, like the West Side Community Collaborative, to address the problems that plague their community. Their most visible successes can be found on the cleaned-up 19th Street and in the greenery sprouting from private and community gardens throughout the neighborhood. They’ve bought, renovated and found owners for properties at no profit (see Harvey’s post); washed graffiti weekly from walls and fences; planted hundreds of trees and grown countless gardens.
Now several committed community leaders are purchasing a building at a pivotal intersection (currently home to Queen Sheba corner store, above) with the highest hopes for what it can mean to the neighborhood.
“The key to our success has been being able to show the residents that the people they are waiting for to come fix their problems are all set up to fail if the neighbors don't do their part first,” said Harvey Garrett, executive director of WSCC. “We shouldn't be waiting for ‘the City’ to come fix all our problems - we are ‘the City.’”
Garrett, Blair Woods, and Monique Watts are in the midst of purchasing 426 Rhode Island Ave, with plans to house the Urban Roots Community Garden Center, the first cooperative of its kind in the neighborhood, in the currently unoccupied half of the space. Tentative plans involved then selling the building, at no profit, to Urban Roots when the organization is financially stable.
“In all of these private investments in the neighborhood, our goal is not to make money, it’s to improve the neighborhood,” Garrett said. “We want to bring the outside [of the building] back to its turn-of-the-century elegance.”
Garrett said they will focus on rehabbing and cleaning up the outside of the building, funded from investment from several other community members. Though considering different leasing possibilities for the other half of the building, Garrett said they will work toward keeping Queen Sheba as the tenant.
The Garden Center will be a Co-op that will provide the neighborhood, and much of the city, no doubt, with original plants and gardening supplies. Pick up our January issue of BRM to learn more about the Urban Roots project.
Woods said, more than anything, they’re helping to build a retail presence on a corner (and in a community) that is in the midst of a significant turnaround. Development plans for its surrounding buildings are beginning to look promising.
“We’re doing it to secure that corner and establish a retail presence,” Woods said. “We hope to get people to notice the opportunity that is there, and spur some future development.”