Brad Hollerbach is the Director of Information Technology for the Southeast Missourian. His opinions are his own and do not reflect those of the newspaper or its editorial board. He writes this blog primarily for his own amusement and to parody the absurdities of the world we live in. He lives with his wife and two cats that don't really care for one another in Cape.

Armstrong Drive Landowners Have Won The Lottery

Posted Wednesday, March 3, 2010, at 12:00 AM

Sometimes people just win the lottery.

Sometimes it's by birth, having rich or famous parents, or parents with good genes that result in children that are smarter or more athletic or better-looking than their contemporaries.

Or sometimes people literally win the lottery, like the fellow from Advance who recently won $200,000 a year for the rest of his life by playing a Missouri twenty-dollar scratch off ticket.

The latest people who have won the lottery are the landowners along the proposed route for Armstrong Drive.

Armstrong Drive? Where's that?

That's what I said to myself when I first heard about the Cape Girardeau City Council voting to approve extending Armstrong Drive using funds from the Transportation Trust Fund.

I asked one of our people in circulation if they knew where Armstrong Drive was.

If you are ever lost, consider yourself lucky if you know a person who works in the circulation department of the local newspaper. Those guys tend to know every street and every landmark, and in the case of our paper, how to navigate them in the middle of the night while simultaneously delivering Southeast Missourian's to our subscriber's homes.

But in this case, Armstrong Drive was as much of a mystery to him as it was to me, so we wound up checking a map.

Armstrong Drive is the very short stretch of road that extends west of Siemer's Drive between the Shawnee Parkway and Bloomfield Road. It's only about 1/10 of a mile long, barely big enough to be considered a city street.

There's not much on Armstrong Drive, just offices for the Department of Corrections and the Division of Youth Services.

But the city plans to lengthen this street about a mile and a half, crossing Bloomfield and extending it all the way to Route K. And they're going to do it in style with a four-lane road.

The road will essentially run parallel with Siemer's Drive and open up a huge amount of nearly inaccessible farmland to commercial development.

And we're going to do all of this apparently at no cost to those landowners whose property values will skyrocket in value. Matter of fact, they not only won the lottery by now owning acreage directly adjacent to a planned four-lane roadway, the City of Cape is even going to pay them for their property required for Armstrong Drive and foot the bill for all construction.

Ironically, the city is using the Transportation Trust Fund to pay for the acquisition and construction, even though most of the project is outside of the city limits. It's in the unincorporated county. One would think that the city-funded Transportation Trust Fund should be used towards improving the existing streets in the existing city not building new ones in the county.

I'm sure the city administration feels this is a Field of Dreams situation. If the City of Cape buys access through this large tract of farmland and builds a spiffy 4-lane road, then the owners of the adjacent property will want to be annexed into our city, and businesses and developers will want to clamor to build along this roadway, and the city will expand further westward.

Build it and they will come.

Or maybe not. Since the city has historically only annexed property owners that have requested to be annexed and the city is already committed to extending Armstrong Drive, there's really not much of an incentive for those landowners to have their properties annexed. They'll still have the nice 4-lane roadway courtesy of the Transportation Trust Fund and their property will now be worth a whole lot more.

Annexing will get them better police and fire protection and automated trash pickup... for their fields, their very valuable fields.

I wonder where exactly they sell those twenty-dollar scratch-offs?

(Photo)

This satellite photo from Google shows the approximate route of the Armstrong Drive extension in green. For points of reference, (A)Wal-Mart, (B)Sam's Club, (C)Kohl's, (D)Lowe's and (E)Target.

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I see what they're wanting to do; take some of the congestion off of Siemers Dr. The city shouldn't be able to aquire land and build a road outside the city limits. Is the city going to pay to mantain the new road out of town (mowing right of way, filling pot holes, clearing snow and ice, striping, ect.), or will this ammount to an unfunded addition to the roads that the county has to mantain?

-- Posted by mynameismud on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 1:35 AM
Siemers is congested? Anyways, any city has to develop infrastructure to build and add businesses, so call me a fan of this move. But hopefully if we do find businesses it won't be more medical or insurance places, I'm starting to get sick of the sight of them.

-- Posted by almighty on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 7:20 AM
The city employees claim the city has no money for paving the cross walk at Main and Themis, until the TTF is extended, so they spread sand around pavers. The sand washes out, the pavers sag and create a really nice looking version of a pot hole/speed bump.

Is it fair to us the taxpayer to use our money to support roads for private development, when a subdivision is required to put in all the roads and infrastructure prior to the plan being approved? The subdivision passes the cost along to the home builder and eventually the owner, who pays property tax based on the value of their property, enhanced by approved streets, sanitary and storm sewers.

-- Posted by IonU on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 7:44 AM
Actually Catfish, my understanding is that by purchasing that land, it then becomes part of the city by default. Or at least the roadway does.

A similar situation exists going out Route K. The area around Notre Dame is part of the city, but I believe that annexation requires the new parts of the city to be adjacent to the existing city.

That's why Route K leading out to Notre Dame is actually part of the city, but a lot of the property along it is not.

IonU, here's the funny thing about this expansion:

One would think that by the city drastically improving the access to these properties that their taxes would go up (Actually, they might go up a little if they are annexed by the city with our higher overall tax rate).

However, as long as they stay undeveloped their tax rate will remain at the Ag Rate even though they are highly valuable commercial property. For instance, all of those great big lots on Siemer's drive are all "farmland." Assessed 2009 property taxes on them range from about $81 to $1,565 for that acreage. But I bet an independent appraiser would assess that property a whole lot higher.

Thanks for reading.

-- Posted by Brad_Hollerbach on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 9:00 AM
Curious no one has asked who the lucky lottery winners (i.e. property owners) are.

-- Posted by voyager on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 10:08 AM
I have a copy of the current engineering drawings from the city and it looks like it will directly impact about 7 parcels of property. The ownership of two of the parcels is not clearly identified, but the remaining five are:

Albert C. Schabbing Dairy Farms

Georgia Bierschwal Trust

Kenneth G. Schwab Trust

Olive M. Keller

Robert A. Drury

I THINK one of the two parcels that I'm unsure about is owned by Drury Land Development. It's along Route K just west of Robin Lane. DLD is indicated as the owner of the property east of Robin Lane up to the rear of Wal-Mart.

TFR

-- Posted by Brad_Hollerbach on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 10:33 AM
Now it all comes together. I was wondering why the new zoning laws were going to allow farm animals. What I don't understand is why in the world they are building this road as a four lane when they should have built LaSalle as a four lane. In the future, the easement on LaSalle is going to cost a fortune. I have my doubts about the present city council.

Check out the Out of the Past, March 1, 1935. The city council was setting aside $1800 for maintenance of West End Blvd close to the Fairgrounds Park (Capaha Park). Hmmm! The present city council spends money for projects and doesn't set aside money to maintain them. They depend on the taxpayers to cough up the money when the council starts crying about not having money to fix their broken projects. Look out, in the next five or so years, they'll be looking to the taxpayer to fix, repair, replace the water park. You just wait and see.

-- Posted by Chilin' on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 10:45 AM
You're right, Chilin' there is no such thing as maintenance-free for anything be that streets or water parks.

Speaking of the water park, I will be curious to see if it will cover its expenses. I wonder if a government institution have to have liability insurance? That's probably why the previous, "private" water slide that used to be between Cape and Jackson never succeeded. I imagine that liability insurance has to be outrageously expensive for a water park.

I think the goal of the water park from day one should be to cover it's current expenses and create a nest egg for future maintenance that it will unquestionably need.

TFR

-- Posted by Brad_Hollerbach on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 11:05 AM
There are water parks around the country that have been designed for use year round. Of course, our wonderful city council chose the "cheaper" design. The water park will only be open three months out of the year.

I get so frustrated when I see how myopic the city council is.

-- Posted by Chilin' on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 11:19 AM
I would guess Chilin' that a more year-round water park would also cost a lot more to enclose especially considering the scope of the one we are building.

Perhaps, the other 9 months of the year, we can drain the pool and market it as the Midwest's Biggest Skate Park.

Hmmm, sounds like a potential blog topic. Other uses for the water park in the off-season.

TFR

-- Posted by Brad_Hollerbach on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 11:34 AM
Rumor has it that a portion of the proposed road borders what will eventually be government owned as in a state park or conservation area.

-- Posted by Old John on Wed, Mar 3, 2010, at 7:28 PM

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