DOWNTOWN
DOWNTOWN’S
NEW CHAPTER
Improvements continue in the heart of Fort
Pierce even as the city seeks to turn the page
16
on the national recession
STORY AND PHOTOS BY SUSAN BURGESS Mandy Green carefully rearranges a row of
colorful candles created at Sentiment, the
downtown store she and her aunt opened
in 2008. She muses about their first holiday
season, why they opened the store, the future
of Fort Pierce.
For Green, and many other merchants in the resilient
109-year-old city, January is a good time for reflection. “The
downtown has made a pretty amazing transformation in just
the last five years, and we knew it was where we wanted to
be,” Green says as she works on the candle shelves.
It’s all wrapped up together, with the candles forming
a vital piece of the store’s merchandise, just as Sentiment,
Whimsy, Café LaRonde, Yiannis Greek Café, Coke’s Stationers,
Art Mundo and others like them are pieces of the whole
that is downtown Fort Pierce. And downtown itself is a part
of the collage that is the larger city.
“A lot happened after the hurricanes,” Green says. “We
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Attractive shops, restaurants, galleries and theater draw people to historic downtown Fort Pierce and encourage strolling from one to the next. Events, a
park and a marina round out the experience. This is a view of Orange Avenue near Second Street looking west.