Neighborhood Open House

Sharing what you want to see in Benton Park West, Gravois Park, and Northeast Dutchtown.

On Saturday, July 18th, from 10 am to 1 pm, residents of the Benton Park West, Gravois Park, and northeast Dutchtown neighborhoods can engage with the development of their neighborhood through the second annual Neighborhood Open House. Residents will have the opportunity to learn about the existing neighborhood development plan, give their input and priorities for what they would like to see change, and learn more about organizations at work in their communities.

“We're going to be at the Golden Record, which is a great event venue on Cherokee Street,” explains Xandi Barrett, who works for Dutchtown South Community Corporation, the host of the open house.

“When you arrive, you’ll have a chance to engage with a lot of different boards.” Xandi here is referring to posterboards that will have various polls, maps, and Post-Its for recording attendees’ thoughts on different aspects of neighborhood life: streets, housing, education, arts and culture, and more.

An introductory board from the event last year outlining how the Open House—listed here as Neighborhood Plan Annual Meeting—fits into the overall strategy of implementing residents’ dreams for their neighborhood.

“Then we’ll have 25, or 26, or maybe even more organizations from around the neighborhoods tabling, so you’ll have a lot of opportunities to speak with different folks who are working in the neighborhood. We’ll also have food and childcare. So if you need someone to watch your little ones while you’re moving around the space, we’ll have that available. And then, of course, lunch from some of our great local restaurants.”

Xandi is the Gravois Jefferson Catalyst, working on behalf of a resident-led planning effort that was adopted by the city of St. Louis in 2018. “This year we’re in a big transition, because we are going to get a new neighborhood plan that is developed by the city into the end of ‘26 and into 2027,” Xandi says. The strength of the current plan is that the voices of residents are front and center. “That’s not going to go away. That’s going to continue into the next plan. But I think we’re going to, hopefully, get a lot more city collaboration because the city planning department is really pushing this forward.”

Residents who attended last year’s open house listed “vacancy, street and sidewalk safety, and then trash and illegal dumping” as their top priorities. “We took that information and passed it along to a coalition of organizations that work in our neighborhoods to figure out how we, as organizations, can address these issues.” But city collabration is key, Xandi says. They want to “push the city into thinking deeper about their responsibilities in the neighborhood.”

Volunteers who would like to help at the open house are encouraged to sign up by Wednesday, July 15th at volunteersignup.org/PKD4X. “That’ll give us enough time to make sure that you have the information you need to be prepared and ready to go on on the 18th,” Xandi says.