Rivermont commercial block undergoing rebirth

In the past five years, nearly all of the properties surrounding Milton Dalton’s painting company in lower Rivermont have changed hands, bringing in new blood, new renovations and a new sense of life to a once-blighted area.

“It was really a run-down block until just a couple of years ago,” Dalton said. “Now we have a lot of newcomers who are renovating and things are really looking good.”

“People want to upgrade and make their buildings look better,” he reflected “They’re taking pride in the block.”

Dalton’s company, M.A. Dalton Painting Contractor Inc., has been located on the 1200 block of Rivermont Avenue for the past 22 years, making him easily the senior statesman of that area.

Of the nine buildings on the block, seven have come under new ownership since 2004. Each of those new buyers has invested heavily in refurbishing their buildings, reversing a decades-long trend of decay and neglect.

“This place used to be an eyesore. You’d drive by and see all these old, rundown buildings,” recalled Ken “Cutter” Boyd, a barber who opened his own shop on the block just four months ago. “But now people are cleaning it up and I can see it in the future as a great area … It will get better and better.”

The 1200 block, part of the local Rivermont Historic District, had good bones from the outset. Its buildings date back as far as 1906. In addition, it’s located in a high-traffic area and properties there could be bought inexpensively by those willing to take on a fixer-upper.

“People were looking at the potential, I think,” said Kelly Mattox, who spent nine months remodeling her building before opening the Avenue Arts Gallery there in 2007.

“It was inexpensive to buy. We’re on Rivermont, right near downtown … From a traffic flow standpoint, you couldn’t ask for a better spot.”

Dalton — who always worked to keep up his own building, considering it a calling card of sorts for his painting business — said it was the high traffic flow that first attracted him to the area back in 1987.

“When opening a business, what are the three most important things? Location, location, location,” he said.

The block is now home to three art galleries — Avenue Arts, Rivermont Studio and The Firehouse. It also has a church, a charity clothes closet and will soon offer a seafood restaurant, Papa Joe’s Fishes & Loaves, once renovations to that space are complete.

Most of the enterprises on the block have opened within the last three years following extensive improvements to the buildings. The taxable value of the properties has nearly doubled in the past five years as a result, jumping from $243,100 to $471,500 — an increase of 94 percent.

Property owners said they hoped their revitalization efforts would benefit the neighborhood as a whole by bringing positive activity to the area and stemming the tide of blight, which can often spread throughout an area.

Pastor Shirley Hunter of Dominion Now World Ministries International said she felt each of the block’s occupants had the “same heartbeat” when it came to the passion and vision they had for the neighborhood.

“It’s like God brought this team together,” she said. “Entrepreneurs and ministry are out here working together, trying to change mindsets, to change a community.”

Hunter and her co-pastor, Daryl Conner, are also behind the Papa Joe’s Fishes & Loaves restaurant. Both have prior experience in the restaurant business and were looking for an opportunity to expand their presence in the area beyond the pulpit.

“People need to see your hands at work all the time, not just on Sunday,” Hunter said, adding they hope to mentor the neighborhood’s children and inspire them to become young entrepreneurs one day.

“It’s a form of outreach,” she said. “… We want to reach young people who feel like they don’t have any options and give them an alternative. To tell them, you have gifts inside you that you can use (to improve the community) instead of allowing the cares of this world to take you down.”

“Once you change minds and hearts, you change lives,” Hunter said. “I believe that can work for everyone.”