St. Paul continues to punch above its weight in downtown revitalization! With support from a $10,000 Virginia Main Street (VMS) Downtown Investment Grant (DIG), the community recently completed an alleyway activation project, creating a pocket-sized outdoor eating space between two restaurants that hosts both permanent and temporary art exhibits. One temporary exhibition space is truly pint-sized. The Small Art Gallery appears similar to a free little library in scale but with rotating exhibits of miniatures produced by local artists. Another temporary exhibit includes full-sized removable artworks placed on the walls of the Western Front Hotel. On permanent exhibit are two murals painted on the other side of the alleyway on the walls of Giovanni’s Pizza. These murals include a treasured spontaneous graffiti artwork that appeared in 2020 and artworks commissioned in 2022 depicting native plants. St. Paul is exploring adding a ground mural to the Art Alley in 2024.

The ringleader for this project was Kathy Stewart, Program Manager for St. Paul Tomorrow (STP), an Advancing Virginia Main Street (AVMS) and Main Street America Accredited program. She included the town government in the conversation because all alleys in St. Paul are owned by the municipality. In fact, it turned out that making infrastructure improvements to the alleyway was part of the town’s existing infrastructure project plans.

Our Design Committee discussed closing the alleyway and making it more attractive for almost a year before applying for grant funds and before COVID. Closing it off and adding additional improvements through visual arts, while also creating an outdoor seating area for our restaurants doing takeout during the pandemic was logical. With our streets being so small, it was hard for us to block off parking places like other larger downtowns were doing.

Kathy Stewart, Program Manager, St. Paul Tomorrow

Even with the pandemic having wound down, the Art Alley continues to be open seven days a week and provide outdoor dining space for restaurants and outdoor recreation visitors in St. Paul.