Past the rusting bikes in front yards and rows of homes with peeling paint, beyond the dirty snow melting in the gutter and the commuters coughing at the streetcar stop, a bold and baffling sign hangs at the southwest corner of Coxwell Ave. and Gerrard St.

“Super Dave!” it reads, with a 90-degree bend in the middle, so from most angles you can see only one of the words.

“It’s kind of … weird,” says Lisa Pucci, an East Yorker who passes this way on her way to work. “I don’t really know.”

The sign is just a couple of metres long and hangs above the entrance of a convenience store. The man working the counter, who will only identify himself as James, is equally murky on the meaning of “Super Dave!”

“Everybody is interested in this,” he says, laughing, while ringing in customers’ purchases of bottles of pop, cigarettes and scratch-and-win tickets.

“I think it has something to do with show business?” he offers.

The answer comes from landlord Franco Rovazzi, who, in his dual capacity as a lawyer, wants to emphasize the sign has nothing to do with show business — particularly that it’s not related to the antics of a shambolic stuntman-comedian from television in the last century.

The prior owner of the store was named Dave, Rovazzi explains. Since the shop was called “Super Save,” Rovazzi and his co-investors in the property took to calling it “Super Dave” — an inside joke of sorts, says Rovazzi.

So when they bought the place, they wanted to emblazon their pet name for the store on a flashy sign for the upgraded façade. But by then the convenience store had also changed hands . . . and the new owner’s name was Hyukgun Kwon.

Super Hyukgun just didn’t have the same ring to it, so Rovazzi approached Kwon, who agreed to go with “Super Dave!”

“We thought ‘Super Dave!’ is OK,” Kwon says when reached on the phone. “People say it’s fantastic, it looks good.”

But aside from its eye-catching zaniness, Rovazzi hopes the sign is also a harbinger of change on this stretch of Gerrard north of Leslieville. He points to the row of shops west of the Super Dave! store, all part of the building that he and his partners just finished renovating. Topped with mauve, turquoise and sky-blue paint, the strip now houses a boutique café, toy store, and shop for dog swag, and a high-end pizzeria — a new branch of Kensington Market’s Via Mercanti — on the cusp of opening its doors.

Next, Rovazzi explains, he and his co-investors plan to convert the back alleyway to cobblestone, which would work as a patio for the Sweetgrass Brewery that’s moving into the building south of Super Dave!.

“Right now it’s nasty and horrible, but we’re going to make it … one of the grooviest corners in Toronto,” Rovazzi boasts.

Dawn Chapman believes it’s well on its way. The proprietor of Lazy Daisy’s Café opened up shop three years ago, and attests to the power of the revitalization Rovazzi and his partners have pushed.

“It’s been attracting tenants,” she says, standing on the curb outside her shop and pointing to the art gallery just a few doors to the west. She added that the area’s history as a South Asian hot spot hasn’t changed, either, with a host of Indian eateries doing business along Gerrard.

“They’ve made a real investment in making this a community,” she says of Rovazzi’s development.

“It now feels more like a village … united, yet different.”

The stretch of Gerrard St. between Greenwood Ave. and Coxwell Ave. has been recognized as Toronto’s “Little India” business hub for decades. Chand Kapoor, chair of the Gerrard India Bazaar BIA, said new developments coming into the area aren’t stirring up concerns that the character of the neighbourhood will change.

In fact, Kapoor says, established businesses are excited at the prospect of heightened activity in the corner of the city.

“This is something collectively we are doing and it is the right step towards beautifying the neighbourhood,” he said.

That’s the idea, says Rovazzi, adding that he’s hesitant to use the word “gentrification.”

“We decided to do it in a not-in-your-face way,” he said, contrasting his development with condo projects that face opposition in other neighbourhoods.

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“The whole neighbourhood is starting to change. The Beaches is pushing over and Leslieville is pushing over … We just wanted to spruce things up and add a bit of colour.”

Standing on the corner and shaking her head, Pucci says the Super Dave! sign sure is cryptic, but she appreciates its eccentricity.

She shrugs. “It means ‘great deals,’ I guess.”