I-75 work means limbo for Mexicantown's Mercado project

Fern Espino looks out at the orange plastic construction fence in front of the Mexicantown Mercado and pictures happy shoppers strolling past a burbling fountain. That's the optimistic view.

The pessimistic view is that she's looking at the same old unfulfilled potential. And the actual view isn't much: concrete, bare trees, no fountain, no shoppers, and the late stages of a mammoth freeway project that has hovered around the Mercado like a two-year-long hurricane.

Four-fifths of a mile away on West Vernor Highway, meanwhile, a bright and friendly coffeehouse called Café con Leche has customers at three tables with four more people in line -- a scene rarely played out when it was the Mercado's last, lonely tenant.

The barista is Monica Cervantes, another former Mercado merchant. She gave a year of her life and most of her savings to a shop called Maya's Jewelry, offering silver pieces from her native Mexico in a building that still doesn't have its name or street number on the outside.

She and Jordi Carbonell, who owns the coffee shop, say they wish the Mercado well. But you can put them in the group that won't believe there's progress until they can actually see the scene Espino pictures in her mind.

Welcome Center fares better

Espino, whose glass is not only half full but available for purchase, chairs the Mexicantown Community Development Corp. board. The MCDC committed $17 million to the Mexicantown International Welcome Center and Mercado -- money cobbled together from private donations, corporate contributions and tax credits.

She says the Welcome Center is 80 percent full, even if it doesn't seem that way from the street and even if tenants like a dialysis center don't seem all that welcoming. The Mercado, facing Interstate 75 between Bagley Street and West Vernor, is another story, and not a cheerful one.

It opened on Cinco de Mayo in 2007, about a year behind schedule. With only five tenants, it was never close to half full. The Ambassador Bridge Gateway Project quickly made it inaccessible to customers and undesirable for further occupants. Tenants say they were short-changed on everything from a restaurant to foot traffic to the fountain.

Cervantes' experience was typical. Over the course of a year, she gradually cut her hours, then finally cut her losses.

A legal resident married to a U.S. citizen, Cervantes, 27, says she always wanted to own her own store. "That was going to be my American dream."

'A little more time'

Except for periodic special events, the Mercado has sat empty for a year. Nine months ago, Espino said the MCDC's leasing agent was talking to "two or three serious candidates" for space. Tuesday, she said three vendors are "very interested."

One spot stands ready for the GM Galleria, showcasing Hispanic art. She'd like to see a café and bakery at one end and a bistro at the other. Also on her wish list are herb and jewelry shops, a bilingual bookstore and a police mini-station.

"I would like everything to be done by Cinco de Mayo," she says -- only six months from now, when the footbridge across I-75 opens and connects the Mercado with the busiest swath of Mexicantown. "I know when you lose trust, you have to work to get it back. We'll get it back from people who want us to succeed."

At Café con Leche, a CD by a young musician named Ricardo Naipes is playing softly while Naipes taps at his laptop. "We're like a community spot," Cervantes says. "The neighborhood needed a place like this."

It was supposed to find one at the Mercado, where Espino is getting ready to lock up. "It's just going to take a little more time," she says.

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