Over the past year, people have been transfixed on the change happening at 717 Crockett St. Improvements could be seen weekly during our year of Covid-19, proving that good things can happen even in really rotten years. The 1920s Sam Wiener-designed building both deserved the rehab and was lucky to get it.

It’s been a rough 2020 for Chase Boytim. Like other bar owners in Louisiana, he has had a grim time in this year of Covid. Some have hunkered down, some have decided to close up shop altogether, but Boytim has done neither. In fact, he decided to expand.

In the last several weeks, downtown Shreveport has announced the opening of four new restaurants and the re-opening of a favorite that had briefly closed. What gives? The restrictions of COVID-19 have been hard on eateries. First came mandates for curbside and delivery only, extensive PPE requirements and limited dine-in occupancy.

C & C Electric and Lighting had been at 2430 Line Ave. for years. The mom-and-pop shop was a go-to for lighting fixtures and repairs. This was still not a place to which you would go and hang out. Lingering was not what customers tended to do after purchasing.

Two handsome twin brothers from Canada and a Texas couple with lots of children and a bakery and an old silo and a furniture line take Plain Jane homesteads and turn them into trendy, remarkable spaces using designer magic and lots of greige. (It’s a thing, Google it).

Each spring we return to Baton Rouge to defend or extend these credits that act as a little bit of risk abatement and that have made remarkable differences in cities from Monroe and Shreveport to New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Gina Marie, Stephen and Josie Masson look and act like a typical family. They joke and laugh, play with their headstrong, lovable bull terrier, and spend a lot of time working on their new retail space in downtown Shreveport. That is where the “normal” part of their story ends.

Recently, the city of Shreveport, Downtown Development Authority and tenants of the Red River District threw a party to welcome people back. It was time, thought tenant Christi Johnson Ranger, to remind people of how clean, pretty and safe the district is and to tell the story of the small and local businesses that now call the space home.