50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ

ST. LOUIS • City leaders hope the $79 million renovation of the Peabody Opera House will be another magnet to draw visitors downtown.

But it will take some work to convince some suburbanites such as Eugene Degenhardt, who says the reopening of the vintage theater, at 14th and Market streets, holds little appeal unless he and his wife are guaranteed a safe trip in and out.

Degenhardt and his wife, of Oakville, rarely go downtown at night or on weekends out of fear that their parked car will be looted, or worse. He said the only way he'd be comfortable was with a guaranteed parking spot in a garage and a lighted, guarded walk.

That image of a crime-ridden downtown is one officials constantly battle, part of a perception problem that has plagued the city as a whole. But the spotlight is brighter on 50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ' hub, as city leaders look to it to win back the confidence of families who fled to the periphery decades ago.

"We're battling perception all the time," Police Chief Dan Isom said.

"Perception," lamented Maggie Campbell, president of the Partnership for Downtown 50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ, "can be reality."

Police statistics show that downtown crime has dropped steadily over the past five years, while its residential population has more than doubled over the past 10. On any given night, young adults are on the streets in apparent comfort for their safety — walking dogs, pushing strollers, shopping and dining at restaurants' patio tables.

But it's a fragile image.

Degenhardt expressed his concerns after a rash of 60 vehicle break-ins in and around downtown on June 24. There had been similar sprees across the city in the weeks prior, but they didn't garner the same attention.

It was already a sensitive time for the city, after three Marines in town for Marine Week were mugged upon leaving a downtown bar. There also had been a string of armed robberies in the garage of the Lumière Place casino.

"The sad thing is, you can make a lot of progress in a lot of different crime categories, but if you come downtown and your car gets broken into ... that has completely destroyed the experience," said Mike Guzy, a retired city police officer who now works at the 50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ sheriff's office. "You're not coming back. You tell your neighbors in Creve Coeur, and they're not coming back. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

COMFORT ZONES

Megan McMichael, 26, a marketing executive, grew up in St. Charles and later lived in University City and the city's Dogtown neighborhood. Last year, she became one of the legions of loft dwellers drawn to downtown because of its walkability and access to urban amenities.

McMichael, who lives in the Vanguard Loft Apartments on Washington Avenue, says she goes almost everywhere on foot — day and night —whether watching a baseball game at Busch Stadium or strolling Citygarden with her dog.

"It's a much more convenient, upbeat, fast-paced environment," she said.

It didn't get that way overnight. Alderman Phyllis Young of the 7th Ward, who represents the district, recalls the vacant streets of the 1970s and '80s. Back then, she explained, crime wasn't as much an issue because many areas had no one around to be a victim.

City leaders worked hard to bring businesses and residents back to the core. They say the transformation of Washington Avenue from a dying garment manufacturing district to a vibrant loft district went a long way toward attracting people such as McMichael.

In 2000, the Partnership for Downtown 50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ began managing the Community Improvement District of 165 square blocks. Property owners pay a special tax to fund initiatives aimed at making the area attractive to development. One part is delivering cleaner, safer streets.

Since the establishment of the CID, the downtown population has more than doubled, according to the partnership. Census figures show that from 2000-10, the downtown neighborhood was up 359 percent, to 3,701 residents, and Downtown West was up 79 percent, to 3,940.

There has been more than $5 billion in new investment and more than $60 million poured into streetscapes, parks and public places, the partnership says. More than 160 new restaurants and shops have opened. Nearly 90,000 people work downtown.

"It is really exciting —thrilling, actually — to see the change that has taken place in the last 10 years," Young said.

Over the last five years, according to police statistics, crime has declined downtown — across almost every category and outpacing the citywide drop. Year-to-date comparisons between 2007 and 2011 show that in the areas strictly defined as downtown and Downtown West, there were major decreases in burglaries, larcenies and vehicle thefts. In both, crime totals were below figures from both last year and five years ago.

Not all the figures are rosy. There were 90 robberies reported in the two neighborhoods in the first half of 2011, compared with 75 in the same period of 2007.

Moreover, comparisons may be inexact, owing to changes in the way police count some incidents. A group of car break-ins that are obviously related by time and location may now be counted as one crime, for example. A shooting is now counted by the number of victims, even if it's one incident. And Post-Dispatch investigations in recent years have raised questions about the veracity of some crime numbers. But the trends, from numbers compiled for the FBI's national data, reflected sweeping shifts in most categories.

"We had a decrease in crime and an increase in population. That alone suggests that things are trending in the right way," said Isom, who noted that he feels at ease dropping his 15-year-old daughter off alone at her favorite beauty salon downtown.

McMichael said the vitality of downtown was one of its main attractions for her. Safety is not a concern. "I've never felt threatened, whatsoever," she said.

McMichael said that when she walks alone at night, there are streets she will not venture beyond because she senses a change in the level of safety. Asked to name those streets, she unknowingly described — almost with precision — the boundaries of the Community Improvement District, recently renewed by its members for another 10 years.

GUIDES AND COPS

Michelle Cheli is not a police or security officer and doesn't pretend to be, although she looks the part with her bright yellow shirt, black cap and the chatter coming from the two-way radio on her shoulder. She's one of 15 guides dispatched by the partnership to make the CID's streets more welcoming.

Cheli calls herself "mobile hospitality." As she walks her regular beat, she picks up trash, dispenses history and gives directions. She and her colleagues offer nervous people escorts to their cars, although Cheli says the escort program rarely gets more than a couple of calls each night.

The guides have been around since the start of the CID. With their pocket maps and friendly advice, they have indirectly become as much a part of the safety scene as the blue-shirted bike cops on the same streets.

Campbell said 50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ was heeding the "broken windows theory," dating back 25 years in New York, which says that petty crime and disorder breed a general atmosphere of lawlessness. The lesson, she said, is that focusing on environmental details can have a real impact on crime prevention.

Police have recognized the special challenges posed by downtown as the region's sports and civic center. In addition to increasing patrols for big events, and using crime mapping to focus on hot spots, 4th District officers are working regularly with the downtown partnership on initiatives beyond usual policing.

In November, the department increased the size of the bike unit downtown, adding a third squad of a sergeant and seven officers. The district commander, Capt. Kenneth Kegel, said the bike units were an asset not only for visibility, but because they encouraged communication with residents and businesses.

The Community Improvement District bought their equipment and pays the rent at a Ninth Street substation. A police academy sergeant gives classes as part of a neighborhood watch program the partnership organized. Similarly, security cameras placed around the CID — five now, but soon to be nine — are a joint effort.

Representatives from 18 of the bigger office buildings meet monthly at police headquarters to share experiences and brainstorm solutions. Those buildings are tapped into a radio network that the partnership uses to broadcast anything significant that comes over a police scanner. If a robbery takes place, guards in those buildings hear about it almost immediately.

"Very, very quickly we engage 18 other sets of private sector eyes and ears," said Ken Gabel, the partnership's director of urban space management.

Gabel, a former 50¶È»ÒÊÓƵ police lieutenant who has also worked in private security, said it was now more difficult to commit a crime downtown and get away with it.

The focus is not on violent crimes — downtown usually sees only 1 or 2 percent of the city's murders and an even smaller proportion of rapes — but on so-called nuisance crimes that can eat away at quality of life and the perception of safety.

"We've spent quite a bit of time in the last year and a half on 'environmental factors' that contribute to people's perception of safety," Campbell said. "If it's not clean and it's not safe, it's very hard to get people to invest ... it's very hard to have businesses thrive here."