OMAHA, Neb. (KTHV) - Less than three miles from TD Ameritrade Park is the Blackstone District, where crowds are lining up for ice cream at Coneflower, including the Brenners from Conway, Arkansas.
"Oh man, it's awesome," said Patrick Brenner. "It made the trip to Omaha."
Coneflower is known to have some of the freshest ice cream you'll taste.
"So it's a three-day process," Pastry Chef Katie Arant said. "The first day you're cooking the base."
Coneflower is just one of the thriving businesses lining this street, filled with passionate owners who work together.
"We get the beans from across the street," explained Coneflower owner Brian Langbehn. "They roast them, we grind it here." The Blackstone District has become the place to be. But it wasn't always that way.
"It wasn't safe," former resident Jamie Agnew said. "I wouldn't walk alone. Our car got stolen while we lived here."
Like many families, she moved away for safety. But a few years ago, developers moved in.
"It was kind of an 'if you build it, they will come' scenario," Spencer Lombardo, who manages most of the new buildings in this district, said.
"It's businesses that change a neighborhood first, and the residential follows," he said.
A complete turnaround in just a few years.
"Faster than anyone would have thought," he admitted.
And he says the same can be done in Little Rock.
"If you can find an area adjacent to a university or adjacent to an employment center and take a big enough chunk," he said. "You've gotta flip a block. You can't start with one building, you gotta do a block to get it going."
The Blackstone District: A sweet success story in Omaha.
"This is the hottest spot in Omaha," Langbehn said. "I didn't want to be anywhere else."