HEAD NORTH: More than just northside visitors, merchants, residents and this colyumnist are impressed with development of the Old North St. Louis community.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and Sean Thomas, head of the Old North St. Louis Restoration Group, are in D.C. today to receive the 2011 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement, which was given to the community by an office of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Old North was given the Award for Overall Excellence in Smart Growth, which is the highest honor that is given out by the EPA's Office of Sustainable Communities. The award "recognizes an outstanding comprehensive approach to growth," the EPA said. The selection committee also noted that the award "is for the best overall approach to implementing smart growth on a variety of fronts ..."

Among factors that contributed to the community's selection was the 28 percent population gain the area has seen in the past decade. Winning projects must have an impact on the community, and not merely be a design for development, the Old North restoration group said in a post on its website.

The restoration group is the not-for-profit that laid the foundation for the development, which used strategies that promote walking, rehabilitate vacant buildings and establish green spaces, the EPA said.

A specific effort cited by the EPA was the revitalization of two main blocks of the neighborhood -- 14th Street north from Warren Street to St. Louis Avenue (nearly to the door of the Karandzieffs' venerable Crown Candy Kitchen) -- into something called Crown Square. The $35 million project involved the redevelopment of 27 buildings along 14th Street and surrounding side streets. It resulted in 80 new households in an area that had been largely abandoned, and the opening of a growing number of new locally owned businesses.

There are also new sidewalks, benches, trees and lights and newly cultivated community gardens sprinkled through the neighborhood. The area includes a North City Farmers' Market and a community-owned Old North Grocery Co-op.