St. Cloud's East Side Being Rebranded as the 'East End'

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- Business owners and city leaders are working on a plan to rebrand the east side of St. Cloud.

Handyman's Hardware's Ashley Severson says during a meeting Tuesday they agreed to rebrand the East St. Germain Street and Lincoln Avenue Corridors as the "East End".

She says they are asking their neighbors to help with beautification efforts.

We're really encouraging our neighbors to clean up their properties, add some flowers and things like that outside their property, power washing the sidewalk, cutting down brush and trees, adding some garbage cans, and making it a more walkable area.

Back in June, the city council allocated $150,000 to help property owners clean up blighted areas in the East End.

Severson says business owners also want to be a part of the bonding request discussions to help with more lighting and streetscaping.

In September the city council approved a plan to bring on-street parking back to East St. Germain Street. Severson says they expect that to happen sometime in July.

Severson says they want to be included in the vision of a revitalized downtown, but at the same time keep their own identity.

We definitely have our own identity. We're a very eclectic, artistic, scrappy part of town that has very deep roots and a long history of businesses and residents that have a long history and multi-generational businesses on the east end.

Severson acknowledges East End businesses have another tough summer ahead with the second year of the Highway 23 and Highway 10 reconstruction project.

They are planning a street fair in September they are calling FestiFall.

The Downtown Task Force has floated out the idea of creating a Business Improvement District for the downtown on both sides of the river. Severson says East End business owners are still gathering information about that.