North of Cape Girardeau, the city has annexed land around what will be the next Interstate 55 interchange, which will tie in with a new east-west corridor connecting Jackson (East Main Street) and Cape Girardeau (LaSalle Avenue). Southeast Missouri State University is planning a research park on land that was recently home to the university farm, and THF realty owns land on the NE corner of the interchange. Although they have delayed construction on the proposed LaSalle Park retail center until 2009 and have not announced any major tenants, this still figures to be a huge new opportunity for development in Cape Girardeau.
I-55 project 'biggest opportunity' for retail since mall, Cape mayor says
By TJ Greaney ~ Southeast Missourian
By fall 2008, a new $10.8 million interchange off of Interstate 55 bordering Cape Girardeau and Jackson will be complete. City officials believe it will be the staging point for residential and commercial growth by drawing off some of the 22,000 cars zooming by on the interstate daily. That traffic will keep cash registers ringing.
"This presents probably the biggest opportunity for a retail development that Cape Girardeau has seen since the mall," said Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson, referring to West Park Mall. "And the challenging thing is that it probably is going to require some of the same aggressive and forward thinking it did all those years back."
The project dates back 12 years when the city of Jackson, led by newly elected Mayor Paul Sander, petitioned the Missouri Department of Transportation to help Jackson drivers find a better way to access I-55. MoDOT initially offered to pay for 25 percent of the project, later upped the offer to 50 percent and finally was so impressed by local cooperation the agency lobbied for the entire project to be funded by the Federal Highway Trust Fund.
Today, said Sander, the interchange is still the only project in MoDOT's history with four partners: Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Cape Girardeau County and Southeast Missouri State University.
"This is kind of a historic storyline because of the cooperation and amount of meetings that went into this," Sander said.
Continue reading>>>