STRICTLY BUSINESS: PREPARING FOR A NEW BUSINESS

You had to wonder what was going on at the northwest corner of Independence and Kingshighway last week.

Trucks were observed leaving the site at the Independence entrance to the seven-acre site, loaded with rocks, materials and debris from the former Wolohan Lumber Co. structures which had been demolished.

More trucks were entering the site from Kingshighway, loaded with dirt, which was being spread in that corner of the property.

The answer was simple.

Debris from the demolition was being cleared form the property, and dirt fill, to raise the property to the required level for rebuilding, is still being moved, in preparation for Albertson's Grocery, which will consist of a 57,560 square foot, one-level building.

The demolition and fill work, contracted by the J. W. Strack Co., is expected to be completed this month, and Albertson has already placed its request for bids in the Dodge Report, a McGraw Hill Companies, Inc. publication for the construction industry.

The original Albertson request called for a construction to start early this month. Construction will be delayed about a month, but we understand that the grocery company is still looking for an opening in the first quarter of 2001.

The project started in September of last year, when Albertson and Lorimont Place Ltd. enacted a real estate transaction for more than seven acres on property which included the former Wolohan Lumber property (4.68 acres) and Pollack property (2.7 acres).

The new Albertson here will provided about 150 jobs.

Albertson's Grocery has more than 2,400 stores in 38 states, with sales of more than $16 billion.

Downtown activity

While all the activity was going on at the Albertson's site, there were some anxious moments in downtown Cape Girardeau recently, where several tanks and brewery equipment was being moved into the old Buckner-Ragsdale building.

The giant tanks were unloaded at the Cape Girardeau Convention & Visitors Bureau parking lot downtown, and hauled across the street and through the Main Street window of the Buckner Building, where a plate glass window had been removed to make room to get the tanks inside.

The new mini-brewer operation is expected to be in place this fall.

Mark Sprigg and Phil Brinson, both of Cape Girardeau, area already taking applications for workers, with an expected September opening.

The old Buckner Building is a historic structure, built in 1916, and home of Buckner-Ragsdale Co. Clothiers until 1982, when the store closed.

Since 1982 the building has been home to restaurants and lounges and at one time a large, full-service banquet and convention center.

The micro-brewery is headed by Sprigg, who has been a home brewer more than 20 years, and Brinson, who is owner of Rufus Mudsuckers, a restaurant and lounge that opened about two years ago at Main and Independence, and Jeremiah's at Sikeston.

Construction everywhere

Construction is going on almost everywhere -- a new gymnasium at Franklin School along Themis Street, giant warehouses along Southern Expressway and Rust Avenue, a new structure in Doctors' Park and other steel framework along Plaza Way. We'll update a number of projects here next week.

Bridge excellence

The Clark Bridge, which carries U.S. 67 traffic over the Mississippi River at Alton, Ill., has received the Federal Design Achievement Award for excellence in engineering.

The Clark Bridge was the first three-span, cable-stayed, single pylon, common "saddle" bridge in the world. Since its completion, the bridge has had a major impact on the surrounding towns, boosting economic development and becoming a tourist attraction.

The Clark Bridge, unique in design and structure, carries four lanes of traffic over its 4,620-foot length.

The bridge spans the Mississippi River between Illinois and Missouri, replacing an original structure built in 1928. The bridge is named after William Clark, who with Meriwether Lewis began the historic 4,000-mile expedition to the Pacific Northwest just a few miles from the site of the current bridge.

The Illinois and Missouri Department of Transportation shared in the $91 million cost of the bridge, with IDOT the lead agency for construction and maintenance. The Clark Bridge was completed and opened to traffic in December of 1993.

The bridge was one of six national winners in the engineering category. The awards are presented every four years as part of the Presidential Design Awards Program in 1983.

The Clark Bridge was one of 338 entered in his category.

Hanson Engineers Inc. of Springfield, designers of the bridge, submitted the application.

As a result of winning the Federal Design Achievement Award, the bridge is now under consideration for a Presidential Award for Design Excellence.

This should all be good news for Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois residents.

The Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, which will take traffic across the Mississippi River, from Cape Girardeau, Mo., to East Cape Girardeau, Ill., is patterned after the Clark Bridge.

In the case of the bridge here, the Missouri Department of Transportation is the lead agency.

The groundbreaking took pace July 26, 1996, and is expected to be completed in 2003, at a cost of more than $100 million.

Day One of construction was Sept. 3, 1996.

The bridge is named for the late Congressman Bill Emerson, who was instrumental in guiding legislation through Congress to assure funding for the project in his home district.

The Emerson bridge has already created some firsts:

The largest concrete pour every made by the Missouri Department of Transportation was completed April of 1997, for the footing of Pier 2 on the Missouri side of the river. The footing measured 60 by 100 by 12 feet and took more than 10.4 million tons of concrete. That's 380 truckloads of concrete, along with 550,000 pounds of reinforced steel for the footing.

Work on the bridge was halted in December 1997, when it was that bedrock for Pier 3 was more porous than originally thought. High water delayed some work on the bridge in 1999.

The Illinois approach work -- including 10 piers and an embankment structure -- has been completed.

Coming up is work on the middle pier. Trailer Brothers of Evansville will move in equipment shortly to start work on the middle pier coffer dam.

A typical cable-stayed bridge is a continuous girder with one or two towers erected above piers in the middle of the span. From these piers, cables are attached diagonally to the girder to provide additional support.

Cable-stayed bridges have a low center of gravity which makes them strong against earthquakes, but at the same time makes them vulnerable to uneven sinking of the ground.