In 2016, the St. Louis Board of Alderman passed Ordinance 70333, creating a traffic calming policy in the City of St. Louis. This ordinance authorizes the Streets Department to use tools like speed humps to reduce speeding and reckless driving in our neighborhoods.

To determine how best to use these tools, 25th Ward Alderman Shane Cohn requested that the Streets Department and their consultants undertake a traffic study in the ward. The report of existing conditions is now complete, and 25th Ward residents are invited to come see the results and offer their feedback.

The June meeting of the Dutchtown West Neighborhood Association is open to all residents of the 25th Ward. The Streets Department and consultants will be on hand to receive your feedback and answer your questions. Let them know where you’d like to see speed humps, safer crosswalks, narrowed streets, or improved signage.

The meeting is at 7pm in the banquet hall at Grbic Restaurant, 4071 Keokuk at Meramec. In addition to the traffic study discussion, Ald. Cohn and 25th Ward Neighborhood Improvement Specialist Christian Saller will be available to talk about other neighborhood issues.

Can’t Make It?

If you’re unable to attend, you can view the existing conditions report. After that, take a survey to let your traffic and safety concerns be known.

Start the month of June with STL Open Streets, the Blessing of the Bikes, and the Dutchtown Bike Tour all happening on Saturday, June 2nd. Free summer camps at Thomas Dunn Learning Center kick off this in June as well. A multi-ward election candidate forum, neighborhood meetings, and plenty of other opportunities to engage with your neighborhood round out a busy June calendar, certainly with more to come. Check our calendar, sign up for our mailing list, and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for all the latest events.

Dutchtown Bike Tour and Blessing of the Bikes

We previously wrote about the annual Dutchtown Bike Tour and St. Anthony’s Blessing of the Bikes. The annual Blessing of the Bikes at St. Anthony of Padua is Saturday, June 2nd at 9:30am. Following that, the Dutchtown Bike Tour departs from Urban Eats Cafe at 10:30am and makes its way through Dutchtown, eventually rolling through STL Open Streets before finishing up back at Urban Eats.

STL Open Streets

Also on Saturday, June 2nd, from 11am to 2pm, is STL Open Streets. Compton Avenue will be closed to cars from Meramec to Cherokee, allowing pedestrians and cyclists to take over the street. Activities and booths will line the street, and KDHX‘s live music stage will be at Marquette Park on the corner of Compton and Osage. Additionally there will be a health and wellness fair at the park. Read our earlier post about Open Streets here.

Neighborhood Meetings

The Gravois Park Neighborhood Association holds their regular meeting on Tuesday, June 12th at 6pm at 3353 California (the old Jefferson Bank building, just north of Cherokee).

Dutchtown West also meets on Tuesday, June 12th. Their meeting is at 7pm in the banquet hall at Grbic Restaurant, 4071 Keokuk at Meramec.

The Cherokee Street Business Association has their monthly meeting at Nebula at 5:30pm on Thursday, June 21st. In addition to business owners, the meeting is open to residents and property owners in the Cherokee Street community and all are encouraged to attend.

Marine Villa‘s regular meeting is at Sister Cities Cajun at 7pm on Monday, June 25th.

20th & 25th Ward Candidate Forum

The 20th and 25th Ward Democratic Club come together on Tuesday, June 5th to host a candidate forum ahead of the upcoming August primaries. The forum will be at the German Cultural Society, 3652 South Jefferson. Candidates (or their representatives) for License Collector, Recorder of Deeds, Collector of Revenue, State House District 81, and U.S. House and Senate will be on hand.

Thomas Dunn Learning Center

Thomas Dunn Learning Center celebrates their HiSET graduates and success stories Monday, June 1st at 6pm. All are welcome to attend the diploma and certificate presentation and reception.

Thomas Dunn is also hosting a number of summer camps. Registration is required for the camps listed below.

The Summer Clay Play ceramics camp for kids 10 and up runs from June 18th to the 22nd. Campers will explore different methods for creating and firing ceramics. A follow-up session, where campers will glaze and then gift their creations, takes place August 6th–10th. Campers are required to attend both sessions.

Coding for Kids, instructed by GlobalHack, is a code camp for kids 10 and up during the week of June 25th.

You can find and register for additional free camps at Thomas Dunn and other locations throughout the City on the City’s website.

Dutchtown South Community Corporation

DSCC‘s Landlord Series continues Wednesday, June 13th, 6pm at Thomas Dunn Learning Center. In June they’ll be discussing tenants’ rights and fair housing issues.

Dutchtown South and Erase the Trace are co-hosting another So Fresh So Cleanup. This month they’ll be at Mount Pleasant Park on Sunday, June 24th from 11am to 3pm.

The Community Empowerment Committee holds their monthly meeting on Wednesday, June 27th, 6pm at Thomas Dunn Learning Center. Dinner and child care are provided.

Other Neighborhood Events

The Downtown Dutchtown Marketplace continues every Saturday from 9am to 3pm in the parking lot of the Feasting Fox. Find antiques, art, collectibles, crafts, and more. For additional information or to become a vendor visit DowntownDutchtown.com.

The committees and Board of Directors of the Dutchtown Community Improvement District meet throughout the month. Find a calendar of meeting times here.

June 5th through the 10th is Negroni Week at the Feasting Fox. Enjoy some classic cocktails and help raise money for PAWS, the Progressive Animal Welfare Society. The South City Sipsters meet on Thursday, June 18th at the Feasting Fox to sample and learn about beers and Rosé wines. The Feasting Fox will also be hosting a five course Beer and Wine Dinner on Friday, June 29th.

Join Urban Eats on Friday, June 15th, 6:30–9:30pm, for an evening of cocktails, appetizers, music and art. Featured artists are Thomas Jackson Park and Pamela Schaffner, and Catching the Westbound will provide the music. Also, on June 8th and 22nd, Urban Eats hosts the South City Board Game Meetup from 6pm to 11pm.

DT2‘s monthly After Hours event is on Wednesday, June 20th at 5:30pm. Pop-Up Professionals, a pop-up event space and consulting service, will be hosting at their space at 5203 Virginia.

The Cherokee Street Community Market returns to Love Bank Park on Wednesday, June 13th from 4:30pm to 8pm. Shop for local produce, enjoy prepared food from vendors, and take in some live music.

Be sure to check our calendar regularly, sign up for our mailing list, and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you have an event in Dutchtown, Gravois Park, Mount Pleasant, Marine Villa, or Cherokee Street that you’d like us to share, please contact us or email info@dutchtownstl.org.

It was a long time coming. This week last year, residents and business owners of Dutchtown got together at City Hall to attend a public hearing to show support for the establishment of a Community Improvement District.

There was a single dissenter present that day. His basic concern was that as a business owner he was already paying high property taxes, but when he realized he was the only dissenter in a room of a couple dozen supporters he aptly indicated, “It looks like I brought a knife to a gunfight.”

This wasn’t by accident. The establishment of the Dutchtown Community Improvement District didn’t occur in a vacuum. In fact it took several years from the initial backyard pow-wow amongst neighbors looking to do something about safety and trash in the neighborhood to the actual drive to get petition signatures.  

In the end, the Downtown Dutchtown Business Association spearheaded the effort with the help of representatives at SLDC. There were monthly public meetings at places like Crusoe’s, Merb’s, the Feasting Fox, and other local businesses to determine who among the Dutchtownies was willing to pay a little more in taxes to have local control over that money and determine how it would be spent to improve the neighborhood.

Once there was a core group of supporters, a map was drawn, re-drawn, and drawn a third time to determine how to balance size, need, revenue generation, and the quantity of absolutely essential owner-occupied supporters.

Next came the petition drive and what a drive it was! Dozens of volunteers spent their free time making phone calls, knocking on doors, and tirelessly searching the internet for contact information for out-of-state property owners to ask them to not only sign the petition, but have their signature notarized. It was a tiring process that lasted several months.

In the end, the Petition had more than enough support, over 50% of the owners of property and over 50% of the assessed value of property in the footprint of the Community Improvement District. Ultimately, with the support of Alderman Shane Cohn, the Dutchtown CID was officially passed and signed by Mayor Lyda Krewson.

Since passage, the CID Board has been meeting once a month on the third Thursday of each month along with subcommittees made up of CID board members and interested neighbors meeting monthly to discuss security, beautification, and marketing in the neighborhood.

Fast forward one year and the first annual budget has been approved by the board which will help fund new trash cans and trash pick, secondary police patrols, and new unified marketing efforts for the Dutchtown neighborhood. To learn more check out the Dutchtown CID Facebook Page and when these changes roll out this summer make sure to snap a photo and send it to us to help share the success!

You can learn more about the committees’ functions or view a listing of Dutchtown CID committee and board meetings here on DutchtownSTL.org.

May is Preservation Month, when we celebrate places that matter to us and what makes them meaningful. Particular attention is paid to preservation of historic architecture, an ongoing endeavor throughout St. Louis and specifically in Dutchtown. Whether you’re just patching the roof of your old two-family, keeping your bungalow looking tidy, or gut-rehabbing a massive old building, your neighbors appreciate your commitment to preserving the built environment that makes Dutchtown special.

In honor of Preservation Month, we’re going to take a look at some previous preservation efforts in Dutchtown. Every year, the Landmarks Association of St. Louis bestows their Most Enhanced Places Awards to outstanding rehabilitation projects, notable additions to historic buildings, and/or new buildings that respect their historic context.

Dutchtown has had several Most Enhanced Award recipients over the years. Let’s take a look back at some of our winners.

5201-5203 Virginia

This mixed-use building with storefronts below and apartments above was a recipient of the Most Enhanced Award in 2017. The rehabbed building features restored pressed metal ceilings and woodwork. Dutchtown’s own Anthony Duncan was the architect on the project. You can get a peek inside this building at DT2’s After Hours with Pop-Up Professionals on June 20th.

2900 Cherokee

This three-story building at Cherokee and Nebraska received the Most Enhanced Award in 2016. The building features a fantastic cast iron store front. Twenty years of vacancy made this one of the more challenging projects on Cherokee Street, but Cherokee Street developer Will Liebermann breathed new life into this important piece of Cherokee’s fabric.

Fox Manor Apartments, 4700 Spring

The Fox Manor Apartments project was an unlikely candidate for an award usually bestowed upon buildings with a bit more storied history behind them. The mid-century low-rise apartments near St. Mary’s High School were long a trouble spot and an eyesore. But in 2014, Landmarks chose Fox Manor due to its benefits to the surrounding historic neighborhoods by improving aesthetics, safety, property values, and functionality.

2608-2610 Cherokee

2608-2610 Cherokee received the Most Enhanced Award in 2011 after surviving over fifteen years of vacancy and unfortunate mid-century alterations to its historic storefronts. Cherokee Street architect Peter Hammond used clues from an old photograph to piece together the brick, stone, and cast iron facade as it originally appeared.

Keep on preserving, Dutchtown! There’s still a project or two around the neighborhood. Maybe you can be the next Most Enhanced Award winner!

The Dutchtown Bike Tour and Blessing of the Bikes returns in 2018! This year the Bike Tour, which starts and ends at Urban Eats Café, will cross paths with the STL Open Streets event on Compton from Meramec to Cherokee.

The Blessing of the Bikes is a yearly tradition at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church. Prior to the blessing at 9:30am, young riders are invited to come by St. Anthony’s for a complimentary helmet adjustment and bike safety check. All are welcome to have their bicycles, skateboards, rollerblades, or other wheeled personal transport blessed.

After the Blessing of the Bikes, head one block down Meramec to Urban Eats to sign waivers and pick up a map (or download a PDF here in advance). The first 25 riders to arrive receive a free water and coupon for an Urban Eats snack or lunch later in the afternoon.

At 10:30am, the Bike Tour heads out from Urban Eats. The guided tour will take you through Dutchtown’s multiple parks and by a few other notable idyllic landmarks. The path is approximately three miles and will take a little over an hour to complete.

The last stop on the Bike Tour route is Marquette Park. Riders will come down Osage and round the corner at the KDHX Live Stage onto Compton with the Open Streets crowd cheering them on. They’ll then head back to the start at Urban Eats, arriving around 11:30am.

Riders looking to get some additional miles in are encouraged to continue on the self-guided tour of South Grand, Carondelet Park, the Christy Greenway, and the River des Peres Trail. The extended route is about a sixteen mile round trip.

The Dutchtown Bike Tour is brought to us by Trailnet, the Downtown Dutchtown Business Association, and Urban Eats Café.