STRICTLY BUSINESS: CAPE GIRARDEAU IN MEDICAL, BUSINESS BIG LEAGUE

Seventy-five years ago, when Cape Girardeau was a younger town, the boundaries were simple -- life revolved around Main Street and Broadway.

Then, as cities are inclined to do, Cape Girardeau grew.

Southeast Missouri Hospital opened on the western-most border, and a new commercial thoroughfare, Kingshighway, was developed. Then came the city's first shopping center, the Town Plaza.

Still later, construction of Interstate 55 turned farmland into motel and restaurants sites.

As late as a decade ago, in the early 1990s, Cape Girardeau could still be described as "a nice little city." Today, that's changed. Cape Girardeau is in the big league, in medicine, industry and business.

Somewhere along the decade of the 1990s, business really took off in Cape Girardeau, and this former small city located along the banks of the Mississippi River, about halfway between Memphis, Tenn., and St. Louis, Mo., became a thriving, almost metropolitan area.

It seems only yesterday that there was no Sam's Club, no Lowe's Home Center, no Target. In fact, there was no Cape West Business Park, where these giant retailers are now located. Kmart and Wal-Mart operations have become Big K and the Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Familiar bank names included Boatmen's, Mercantile, and Capital. Now the giants of banking -- Bank of America, Firstar, and Union Planters -- have operations here.

Restaurants? There were a lot of them a decade ago, but no Outback Steak House, no Red Lobster, and no Bob Evans, where you can have breakfast anytime of the day or night.

There was a mall -- West Park Mall -- but a decade ago, it stood almost all alone out by Interstate 55. Now it's Westfield Shoppingtown Center and is surrounded by a number of other retail outlets and restaurants.

With all the new retail establishments of the past decade, retail sales in the city have grown from $480 million in 1990 to more than $775 million in 2000. Add Jackson and the rest of the county, and Cape Girardeau County sales top the billion-dollar mark.

On the manufacturing side, Procter & Gamble was a small (well, smaller) industry going into the 1990s, and BioKyowa produced only swine and poultry pellets.

Again, it seems only yesterday that some major construction announcements put more than a half-billion dollars into area circulation, resulting more than 1,000 new jobs over the past couple of years.

A Missouri Department of Economic Development executive said it best: "Happenings in this area have started attracting attentions from elsewhere."

Little wonder.

Industrial growth

Procter & Gamble in the 1990s announced a $350 million expansion for its facility, located about a dozen miles north of Cape Girardeau. These plans called for another 850,000 square feet under roof, to produce towels and tissues, expanding the work force from about 1,250 to more than 1,700 employees. (They ended up hiring even more.)

A quick recap of economic development projects over the past two years reveals that the P&G expansion was one of the largest projects in terms of dollar investments in more than a decade in three state of Missouri.

Another big expansion, started about the same time, has been completed, and the BioKyowa work force has doubled to more than 200. The BioKyowa expansion, over $80 million, added a new phase in the BioKyowa operation, located just south of Cape Girardeau in Nash Road Industrial Park. The company now produces nucleoticle seasonings for human consumption, as well as the L-lysing supplements for poultry and swine.

Five Southeast Missouri projects were on the Top 10 investment list during one year: The $350 million P&G expansion; a $100 million, 250-megawatt power generation plant in Dunklin County in the Bootheel; the $80 million BioKyowa Expansion in Nash Road Industrial Park; a $56 million Noranda Aluminum expansion near Marston and a $35 million Good Humor-Breyers Ice Cream expansion at Sikeston.

Mixed news

All of this activity kinds of pales the bad news of the closings of a number of shoe factories in the Southeast Missouri area during the early to mid-1990s.

There were other big industrial announcements over the past two years. Gates Rubber expanded its facility at Poplar Bluff, Lee-Rowan Products expanded its Jackson facilities and large prison construction projects are underway or already opened in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois.

Cape Girardeau is truly a hub of activity between St. Louis, Mo. and Memphis, Tenn. The city is in the process of updating all school facilities and is home to Southeast Missouri State University.

The health care industry is thriving with two hospitals -- St. Francis Medical Center and Southeast Missouri Hospital -- and Doctors' Park. There are high quality nursing homes, immediate care facilities and doctors' offices sprinkled throughout the city.

Restaurant construction in Cape Girardeau has been in high gear for the past few years.

Not counting a few eating places that may not be listed by the Missouri Restaurant Association or in the telephone book Yellow Pages, Cape Girardeau County has well over 100. As many as 3,000 restaurant workers are employed in Cape Girardeau County. A recent report by the U.S. Census Bureau indicated sales in Cape Girardeau County for "food services and drinking" places during a recent year totaled more than $75.5 million.

Continuing construction

And construction continues in Cape Girardeau.

Although the year 2000 won't go down in the annals of construction as the best in the city's history, it is among the top 10 construction years, with more than 400 permits and over $42 million in construction.

Hampered by some long, cold winter months, builders were slowed in January and December of 2000.

The year before, however, 1999, established a new construct record in the city, with 446 permits totaling $64,481,172. That's more than 2-1/2 times the 1990 total of $25.6 million.

How exciting to part of the growing, vibrant community that is Cape Girardeau! Certainly, the U.S. Census Bureau figures to be released beginning next month with back up any assertion that Cape Girardeau is the area leader in business, industry and health care.

B. Ray Owen is business editor and a 34-year employee of the Southeast Missourian.