After months of selling a dream and talking about all of the things that will eventually populate the Mercantile Exchange District, it is really feeling like things are rolling around here these days.

The first of several restaurants opened for business with Pi opening across the street in the MX Building last month. The space underwent a beautiful transformation led by the local architects at Space. In keeping with the “green” theme that is a central focus of the MX project, most of the seating and tables for Pi were crafted by local company Mwanzi using re-purposed shipping pallet wood. Space is also designing the Robust location that will be on our ground floor in the Laurel Building. Space recently tweeted an early conceptual rendering.

Traffic is picking up in the leasing office with the Summer months upon us. We recently moved in our ceremonial “100th Move-In”. You can check out the picture on our Facebook page. We had a large group of “horse-lovers” stay with us earlier in the year so, “technically” we are well past 100 move-ins, but we still decided to honor these guys with gift cards to four downtown restaurants; Pi, Bailey’s Range, Stefano’s and Mosaic.

Other developments are keeping the buzz going about the Mercantile Exchange.

• A sign recently went up for Snarf’s Sandwiches next to Pi. We can’t wait to be able to get the peanut butter, honey and banana sandwich right across the street.
• Art students from Maryville University recently painted the Washington-facing windows of the National Blues Museum space to bring some color to that stretch of the street.
• The Collective at MX, curated by Nicole Benoist, will bring fashionable attire from all around the region to downtown, just steps from our residents. The target opening date is early Fall of 2012.
• The Creative Exchange Lab (Cel) has opened a downtown exhibition space at the corner of 7th and Locust. They will be hosting a Summer Film Series  on Thursdays in July.  The series will feature films focusing on “Architecture, Ecology, Urbanism and Design” according to the website.

More exciting things are in the works for the Mercantile Exchange. We’ll keep you posted.