Sewer, utilities added to vacant industrial park

$1.5 million investment

Business Today

JACKSON -- The city has equipped one area of town with new utilities, hoping that an empty piece of city-owned property will yield more jobs.

The city purchased the 60-acre industrial park on U.S. 61 in March 1998 for $913,000 from the Mayme Jenkins family. The land is located about three miles from Interstate 55.

Going into this spring, there were no utilities on this piece of property. In the past few months, however, the city has made substantial progress.

First, it laid a sewer main to the site for about $300,000. Then, for about $13,000, the city erected electric poles and lines to and on the property. Currently, workers are drilling a well that will provide water to the industrial park. The $350,000 well project will be completed some time this fall.

City administrator Jim Roach says the infrastructure, except for the electric poles put up on the site, will also serve other parts of the city and were not built exclusively for the industrial park.

But the improvements were all made with industrial recruitment in mind. All told, the city has invested more than $1.5 million into the industrial park. The new utilities should make the piece of land more attractive to industry, city and business officials hope.

"You can sit in front of Jackson Tire or in front of Fred's every morning and see the mass exodus of cars leaving Jackson to work," said Jackson Chamber of Commerce executive director Ken Parrett. "We want to make sure there are plenty of opportunities for people to work in Jackson."

The next step at the city's industrial park will be to do some land excavation on the hilly property, Roach said.

Roach said no definite timetable is set for digging, but the city likely will do some next year.

Some, like Roach, would prefer to sell the entire park to one large industry. The benefit would be a large impact on the local economy.

Others would prefer to divide the land and sell it to small or medium-sized industries to prevent a possible negative impact down the road if the industry decided to leave.

There has also been discussion about dividing the front lots into commercial property and saving the back for industrial purposes.

Mitch Robinson, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association, said the site is suitable for about anything except heavy industry, which would require more than the 60 acres available.