PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Ribbon-cutting ceremonies were held today in North Philadelphia for long-awaited streetscape improvements for a Latino business corridor.

North 5th Street at Lehigh is the start of El Centro de Oro, the "Golden Center," the Hispanic business community that runs through Indiana Avenue.

Now, about $4 million in city, state, and federal money has transformed the corridor -- with decorative painted sidewalks, new signage, special trash cans, even metal palm trees.

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"It's so much more attractive now to come to our business corridor and for people to come up and know that it's clean and it's safe and it's a good spot," says  Mike Ostrow, owner of Cambria Pharmacy at the corner of 5th and Cambria.

The next step, say local leaders, is to make the neighborhood a tourism destination.

"We want to market this area," says Mike Garcia, chairman of the board of HACE, the Hispanic Association of Contractors and Enterprises.   "We want to promote it within the city -- whether it be Chinatown, the Italian Market.  We want to be considered or at least spoken of in the same breath."

Garcia says El Centro de Oro offers the greatest concentration of Latin-owned businesses, culture, and social organizations in the region.

Reported by Karin Phillips, KYW Newsradio 1060