Once a magnet for shiny new cars in the early 20th century, St. Louis Street in downtown Mobile roared into life as “Automobile Alley.”

But as decades wore on, the glow faded. The street was replaced by boarded-up buildings and earned a reputation for crime and decay.

“My recollection is that 12 years ago, this was not a place where there were any businesses and certainly nobody wanted to live,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson recalled last month. “There were things going on along this street that we really didn’t want anywhere in Mobile.”

That began to change a decade ago with a $5 million investment into the Buick Building, sparking a quiet renaissance. Since 2015, St. Louis Street has slowly reawakened to welcome breweries, restaurants, a grocery store, and other businesses. In 2023, it earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places.

Now, the city is preparing to put the final stamp on the street’s rebirth. A $16.8 million contract with Mobile-based McElhenney Construction will bring a full restoration to a 17-block stretch of the street, aiming to transform it into a signature downtown destination.

“This will be the icing on the cake,” said Jennifer Greene, director of programs and project management with the City of Mobile.

The city council is set to vote on the project next Tuesday, with construction expected to begin by late summer. The work will occur one block at a time, starting at Broad and St. Louis streets and moving northeast toward Water Street.

Greene said she anticipates the project lasting about 2-1/2 years.

“We’ve been meeting with McElhenney and they have been fantastic,” she said. “There are ways to move it quicker. Our goal is to be on time, if not ahead of schedule.”

The work will cause disruptions largely because of the complexity of the project. The 17-block project is a complete street restoration that includes new underground utility work, new sidewalks, curbs and gutters, drainage, the addition of 50 new trees, and over 2,600 plants.

This isn’t the first major street renovation for Mobile. The project is similar in scope to the Broad Street project completed about two years ago. The $22 million revitalization of Broad Street, which loops around the outer areas of downtown Mobile, included new streets, curbs, gutters, drainage, trees, landscaping and more.

The city wants to do a similar project along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue to serve as a public investment toward revitalizing a stretch of road that officials hope to transform into a cultural heritage tourism district.

“It’s the same type of process there to improve infrastructure and move progress forward for downtown Mobile,” said Councilman William Carroll, who represents the area.

Most of the St. Louis Street project is financed through a $10.7 million RESTORE Act grant made possible from the BP oil spill settlement. In addition, $2.7 million was appropriated through the Mobile Metropolitan Planning Organization.

The Mobile Area Water & Sewer System (MAWSS) will be undertaking approximately $4.2 million in upgrading water and sewer lines owned by the utility. Alabama Power is also involved in the project and will relocate its power poles off the street. The move will create a more aesthetically appealing street by eliminating what has long been described as a ‘spaghetti soup’ of overhanging electrical wires.

“My hope is you’ll have a place to walk, ride your bike with great new landscaping,” Greene said. “We are improving the landscaping. All of the (private) investments we’ve seen on St. Louis Street will be capped off by this project.”

Existing business owners will have some hardships during construction, especially when the work is occurring within the street block they are located. Under the block-by-block approach, once work is completed within one block, construction will begin on the immediate next block and so forth.

“We’ve been working with residents and businesses along St. Louis Street to get them ready for what is coming,” Greene said. “They are all completely aware of what is happening. We’ve had excellent support from the community.”

At a community meeting last month, Stimpson said a block-to-block approach, which may take longer to complete, was more suitable for St. Louis Street than completely closing it to traffic and working on it at once.

“Because of the business activity, we realized that we just can’t shut it down and hope everybody survives,” Stimpson said. “The 17 blocks we are rebuilding, we’ll be rebuilding them one at a time and hopefully we’ll be able to keep traffic flowing around that. Yes, we understand there will be disruptions even at that. But at the end of the day, the disruption in that period of time will be much better than having to deal with the failures that will occur in the future if we don’t do it.”

He said the timing to do the project makes sense before “there are more businesses and more people living along this corridor.”

That has been slowly occurring for years as St. Louis Street takes shape and becomes one of the more attractive downtown destinations next to Dauphin, Royal, and Water streets.

“Yes, it went through a period of businesses closing, but it’s now an artery for downtown,” Greene said. “You’ve seen the Buick Building, Braided River, Wingman, Cheese Cottage, Greer’s. It’s these super cool things coming in and those blocks have been renovated.”

She added, “What we’re wanting to do is to make it look like an amazing street to drive down along.”