I don't know about you, but I love UMA, the STL Syndicate's first advertiser. Mike Finan's downtown shop at 313 N. 11th St. carries all sorts of cool, urban home accessories, including spa products and candles from St. Louis-based K. Hall Designs. We spotted K. Hall's bath and body products at a chi-chi store in Ventura, CA. (Hint: UMA is a lot closer.)

UMA's ad and website were designed by the ab-fab Halski Design. Back in the day, Mark Halski did the graphics for Metropolis St. Louis' marketing materials.

The Syndicate's second advertiser is Dawn Griffin, a city-focused Realtor at Blue Ribbon's office in the Central West End. Her listing for 3966 Connecticut notes that it's within walking distance to Hartford Coffee Co. I think you've arrived as a destination business when you start showing up as an amenity in real estate ads. Speaking of Hartford Coffee, James and Shannon are having an open house for their new venture, Thurman Community Café (located at Thurman and Shenandoah in the Shaw neighborhood), at 7 p.m. on Thursday.

There's a group ad for the Morganford business district on page 53 of this week's RFT (the one with the cover story about Core). I'm guessing that this is the first time in quite a while that there have been enough viable businesses on Morganford with an ad budget to pull that off.

And finally, because I can't stand for this post to be all sunshine with no rain, here are a trio of banner ads for businesses that no longer exist that used to run on The Commonspace site. You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have the Facts of Life (TM). A moment of silence, please ...

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Posted under Business District by Brian Marston on Tue., Jun 28, 2005 at 4:23 PM