Cape's new stores

Kohl's, Sears planning new Cape stores

Business Today

Two national retailers plan to build stores in west Cape Girardeau.

Kohl's Department Stores and Sears, Roebuck and Co. have agreed to build facilities on opposite sides of Siemers Drive.

Both retailers' plans include a financing package that will use city and county sales-tax revenue to fund needed infrastructure. Both companies intend to begin construction immediately and open their new stores by Christmas 2005. The new stores are expected to create more than 300 jobs.

Sears will build a new concept store called Sears Grand -- offering familiar Sears merchandise plus health and beauty products, snacks, pantry items and other family-oriented products -- just south of the existing Goody's store on Siemers Drive. It will be the sixth Sears Grand store in the nation.

Kohl's, a family-oriented department store offering national brands, will be located across Shirley Drive from Lowe's home improvement store.

Mayor Jay Knudtson made the announcement June 10 at a City Hall news conference attended by members of the County Commission, City Council, economic development groups and the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce.

"This was a collaborative effort that took 12 months to work out," Knudtson said. He credited the city, county and chamber along with the efforts of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association and Drury Land Development Inc. of St. Louis with bringing the new businesses to Cape Girardeau.

Sears Grand

Sears will vacate its existing store on William Street in the Town Plaza when the new Sears Grand opens. The new one-story, 150,000-square-foot Sears building will triple the size of its Town Plaza location.

Sears Grand is an extension of the company's mall-based stores. The other Sears Grand stores are located in suburban areas where other Sears stores may be less than 10 miles away. The Cape Girardeau store will serve a much wider trade area, which is why its proposed location visible from Interstate 55 is ideal, according to a Sears spokesman.

Sears Grand will retain the 87 employees at the current Sears and hire 65 more full-time and 88 more part-time workers. Sears Grand expects to top $21 million in revenue in its first year of operation.

Kohl's

The Wisconsin-based Kohl's plans to erect a one-story, 88,248-square-foot building on a recently annexed 10-acre lot in the Cape West Business Park. The store is expected to employ 144 full-time and 15 part-time workers.

The company, which operates 589 stores in 38 states, had $10.2 billion in sales for 2003. It expects the Cape Girardeau outlet will generate $10 million in sales annually.

City and county sales-tax revenue from sales at the two new stores will be used to fund public improvements involved in both developments. Sears and Kohl's will pay upfront for the development costs, and the city and county will reimburse them from newly generated sales-tax revenue.

Revenue from some city and county sales taxes collected at Sears Grand on sales exceeding the $12.5 million currently generated by the existing Cape Girardeau Sears store will go toward repaying the anticipated $4 million in public improvements over the following 15 years.

In a similar agreement, some city and county sales-tax revenue from Kohl's sales will go toward improvements. The estimated cost of the public improvements for the Kohl's project is $2.1 million.

Knudtson said that under these agreements, the respective companies are putting revenue they generate from sales back into the improvements, which will include parking lots, drainage and landscaping.