Downtown Cape Girardeau business leaders meet to discuss collaboration

CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KFVS) - Local business leaders gathered Monday at The Collective, an event center in Cape Girardeau, to discuss strategies for supporting each other’s success and sustaining downtown growth.

Scott Poole, managing director of The Collective, said collaboration is essential to maintaining momentum in the downtown area.

“Right now, the growth in downtown Cape that we are seeing--it’s growing, and this building is a collaborative effort to keep that growth upward instead of plateauing,” he said.

Eight downtown business owners and managers attended the meeting. Poole said working together could help draw more people to the area.

“For example, on Saturday, if people come for the farmers market, if that farmers market was moved downtown, onto the actual street, the vendors might open their doors, and more money could be spent in those particular vendors,” he said.

Stuart Murphy, owner of the British Barber, said the pandemic hit small businesses hard and that building a community of business owners can help keep downtown viable.

“I was looking for an environment where small business owners wanted to help each other, wanted to work together. Not to steal business, not to steal ideas, but to get back to that idea of a real downtown that everybody had a place, everybody knew each other, there was community, there was cross traffic,” Murphy said.

Lisa Armbruster, who co-owns The Bar on Spanish Street, said the meeting reflects a shared commitment among downtown businesses.

“Opportunities like this to all come together and have similar minds, similar missions, and ultimately the same outcome, that’s our goal,” Armbruster said.

Poole said the goal is to give people a reason to spend more time downtown.