PAGEDALE • Sprinklers water fresh sod outside a Save-A-Lot grocery where officials stood last fall and pledged to revive a tired stretch of Page Avenue and give the struggling Normandy School District a boost.

Eight months after that ground-breaking, the red brick supermarket is open on what had been a vacant lot. Officials are happy to see Pagedale's first new grocery in decades.

Commercial development attracts residents and encourages better housing, experts say. Better housing leads to stable families in which children tend to do well in school.

"When families consider where to live, they think about schools," said Stanton Lawrence, Normandy's superintendent. "But they also want a place to buy groceries and other things in the community."

In Hillsdale, two miles from the new Save-A-Lot, Tamirra Holloway will be among the first residents of Hillsdale Manor, a development of 37 single-family houses on three blocks that last summer were mostly underbrush and empty houses nearing collapse. She said her new three-bedroom house is a "dream come true," adding that she will be a regular customer at the Pagedale Save-A-Lot.

Hillsdale Manor and the Save-A-Lot are the latest steps in an ambitious effort by nonprofit Beyond Housing to bolster the Normandy district by providing the 40,000 district residents better places to live and shop. The nonprofit specializes in low-income housing.

Holloway, 34, lost her previous house, in Ferguson, to foreclosure. Her three children will not attend Normandy schools, but she said Hillsdale Manor's presence is prompting nearby residents to spruce up their properties.

"It looks like some people are trying to clean up the neighborhood," she said. "I hope that will inspire some to enroll their kids in the Normandy schools."

When school-improvement efforts began more than a year ago, the Normandy district covered all or part of 23 St. Louis County municipalities. The project's scope grew this year after the state dissolved the Wellston School District because of poor academics. When classes begin Aug. 18, Wellston's 500 students will attend Normandy schools, which have a total enrollment of nearly 5,000.

LONG-TERM EFFORT

The $6 million Save-A-Lot is Beyond Housing's first commercial venture. Chris Krehmeyer, the organization's president, said "a comprehensive approach" is needed if the long-term effort to improve Normandy schools is to succeed.

Community groups and officials in the Normandy district's municipalities are where development priorities should be set, said Krehmeyer, adding that a new grocery emerged as a most-wanted item. Building a supermarket in Pagedale and redoing an abandoned section of Hillsdale are steps in the broader effort, he said.

"We need to get past doing just 37 homes," he said. "We hope to build 25 homes in Pine Lawn like the ones in Hillsdale. We're working with the Normandy district to get some projects off the ground sooner rather than later."

For example, Beyond Housing and Normandy school officials hope to find more desks, chairs and books for the 1,700 children who attend day-care centers within the district.

Over the next decade, Beyond Housing intends to build or renovate 1,200 houses in the Normandy district. Already, the group has built nearly 100 houses in Pagedale.

The St. Louis Equity Fund assembled financing for Hillsdale Manor. John Kennedy, the fund's senior vice president and chief financial officer, said Internal Revenue Service rules covering low-income housing tax credits sold to finance most of the $8.2 million project require the houses to remain as rentals for 15 years. Tenants might eventually get options to buy.

Loans, government grants, investor purchases of tax credits, tax-increment financing and a $1.4 million economic initiative grant obtained by Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo, funded the Save-A-Lot project. Income from the supermarket's initial 10-year lease and TIF-district sales taxes will pay off the loans. Beyond Housing pledged some of its assets as collateral.

The store, opened July 22, is St. Louis-based Save-A-Lot's 1,197th in 39 states. More than 100 people attended the grand opening Thursday.

Rick Meyer, Save-A-Lot's vice president of real estate development, stressed the correlation between a student's diet of fresh food and better grades.

"How many studies do you have to read to understand the balance between a healthy diet and school performance?" he said in an interview.

EPICENTER OF FORECLOSURES

Krehmeyer and Lawrence have said they realize that much more is needed to revive the area and improve schools. The inner suburbs in north St. Louis County represent the region's epicenter of home foreclosures. Normandy school officials were struggling to raise student achievement levels even before the district absorbed the Wellston district.

Pagedale resident Crystal McFarland, who works at a dental clinic for children in St. Louis, illustrated some of the challenges.

Five days after the Save-A-Lot opened, McFarland, 28, and her two children pushed a cart full of groceries to her car. Having a grocery two blocks from home means she no longer has to drive farther to a Schnucks store.

"I'm glad they put the Save-A-Lot here," she said. "I think it will bring the community together. We need more things like this."

McFarland was less sure the Save-A-Lot will help Normandy schools. She said she plans to keep her son and daughter enrolled in magnet schools in St. Louis.