Shopping center to be built near Holiday Inn

Construction is slated to begin as early as this week on a new shopping center near the Holiday Inn Express in Cape Girardeau that will feature men's and women's clothing stores as well as a sandwich shop and cafe.

Midamerica Hotels, which owns the Holiday Inn Express and several Burger Kings in the area, will build the 18,000-square-foot Park West Centre at 201 S. Mount Auburn Road, according to Bob Hahn, the company's vice president of development.

Eight units are planned for the L-shaped building that will be positioned directly south of the new Panera Bread and east of the new Holiday Inn Express. The building is expected to be finished by the middle of April, Hahn said.

He said the company is attempting to bring in nationally known clothing stores. Midamerica has a letter of intent with one clothing store and is working on deals with others.

One definite tenant will be the Honey Baked Ham Co. and Cafe, which is owned by Joel Niekirk, who also works for Midamerica Hotels and owns the Heavenly Ham Co. Hahn said Niekirk will close Heavenly Ham and move into the new center. The new sandwich shop will feature a drive-through, among other amenities, Hahn said.

While the company is looking for clothing stores, Hahn said, that doesn't mean there won't be other kinds of stores or that there will necessarily be eight of them. A larger store may take two of the units, for example.

Clothing is "our emphasis," he said, "but that doesn't mean it's actually going to evolve that way. We're open to other users, obviously."

According to the building permit on file with the city, the estimated cost of construction is $1.2 million for the building. Midamerica will be its own general contractor, using local subcontractors. Vice president of construction John Drury will be in charge of construction.

Meanwhile, Hahn said Midamerica is still investigating another "fast-food use" for the area between the new Panera Bread and Olive Garden, which are both under construction in front of the new Holiday Inn Express.

* Montgomery Bank's new branch: Meanwhile, plans are moving forward on Montgomery Bank's new branch, which will be right next to the Midamerica shopping center at 200 S. Mount Auburn Road.

Before construction starts, a temporary trailer will go up for banking, said regional sales manager Lisa Billings. The trailer should be operational by the end of December or the first of January, she said.

Construction on the one-story building will begin about the same time as the trailer goes up and is expected to be completed by Labor Day, Billings said. The new 3,000-square-foot full-service bank will have a drive-through ATM. This will be the second Montgomery branch for Cape Girardeau, which already has two branches in Jackson.

Billings told me the bank is also putting an ATM at Southeast Missouri Hospital, which will match the one it has at Saint Francis Medical Center. The Southeast ATM should be installed in a few weeks, she said.

* Medical center on Silver Springs: A new building going up on South Silver Springs Road in Cape Girardeau will be offices for at least two physicians. It's called Silver Springs Medical Center. The building should be finished next spring, according to Michael Wood, CEO of St. Louis Management Group, the consulting firm handling the project.

Wood said he wasn't prepared to name the doctors who will go into the new offices or even what their specialties are. He did say the offices are being set up as a surgery center.

According to Robb McClary, director of inspection services with the city, the address will be 310 S. Silver Springs Road. He said that building permits have been issued for the building's shell and that the interior work will cost about $400,000.

* Cape Electrical Supply building new showroom: Cape Electrical Supply is building a new 10,000-square-foot building near its corporate offices on the corner of Kell Farm Drive and Bloomfield Road. The building will include a 5,000-square-foot showroom for its residential products, according to vice president Bob Garrett.

That means the current showroom, the Lighting Center on Christine Street, will move to the new building. Garrett said the company is completing a deal to lease a portionof the building to another tenant.

"We're rolling out a new logo and a new look," Garrett said. "We're going to consolidate what we have on Christine over here. They told us it was crazy to have two inventories four miles apart, but it's worked well for us."

When Cape Electrical Supply moved most of its operation from Christine to the current location in 1999, the company thought it would have moved the rest over sooner. That location's success caused Cape Electrical Supply to want to build a newer, nicer showroom.

The new showroom will be called Southfork Lighting and will feature a line of lighting products. The company, which already operates Southfork Lighting Centers in Poplar Bluff, Mo., and Paducah, Ky., hopes to have a grand opening in early December and have the new retail store open in the spring.

* Gas for $1.29!: Starting today, Broadway Station at 600 Broadway will reopen for a short time. Owner Steve Majeed says he's opening the station to unload the 6,000 gallons of gasoline still in the tanks and that he's going to sell it for $1.29 a gallon. He notes that they only have regular unleaded fuel.

Majeed wants to get rid of the fuel there because he has plans to build a new strip center called Riverside Mall. The new mall will include five retail shops, including a pizzeria. The new 3,760-square-foot strip mall is scheduled to be completed early next year, Majeed said.

The Broadway Station will only be open until the 6,000 gallons of gas is gone, he said. At $1.29, how long do you think that will take? About two hours?

* Bauer buys Bud's Vacuum Sales: Jim Bauer got the idea to buy Bud's Vacuum Sales when he was standing in line and he heard people talking about the fact that it was closing.

"Where are we going to go now?" he recalls them saying.

He found out that 81-year-old Gusta Koehler had decided to close the authorized Kirby sales and repair center after 27 years of doing business near the corner of Spanish and William streets. Her husband, Bud, had died in 1990 and other family members had been helping her run the place, but she was ready to call it quits.

"I had sold Kirbys when I was in college so I knew a little bit about the business," he said. "I even knew Bud."

So he decided to buy it, much to his wife's chagrin.

Now, his wife, Terri Clark-Bauer, has gotten in on the act. They've recently added American Indian pottery to the store. She had been selling that pottery on the Internet, but recently moved the inventory into the store.

The grand reopening of the store runs through Dec. 3, Bauer said.

* A new muffler and auto repair shop is set to open within the next two weeks. Aquamsi Muffler, at 211 Aquamsi St., is owned by Tom Sample, a mechanic with 15 years of experience.

* John's Detail Shop has opened in Scott City at 523 Second St.

Scott Moyers is the business editor for the Southeast Missourian. Send comments, business news, information or questions to Biz Buzz, 301 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699, call 335-6611, extension 137 or e-mail smoyers@semissourian.com.