BUSTLING WITH BUSINESS: INDUSTRIAL PARK TO BRING NEW JOBS TO STE. GENEVIEVE AREA

Editor's note: This is part of a continuing series about the area's industrial parks.

STE. GENEVIEVE, Mo. -- Trautman Industrial Center is running out of room for new businesses and industries looking for ready access to electricity, gas, water, sewers and paved streets.

The park on Highway M in Ste. Genevieve is one of two industrial parks in the historic river town.

Ron Armbruster, of Armbruster Realty, which helps market the industrial park, said there are only nine acres and a vacant building left.

Trautmans Center, owned by Gerald Trautman, was established a number of years ago and is home to six companies that employ between 500 and 600 people.

A new 94-acre business and industrial site Parc Ste. Genevieve is about a quarter-mile from Trautman Park and is ready for occupancy.

The new park features 19 sites, ranging from 1.8 to 13.54 acres, said Marv Harman, Ste. Genevieve County's economic development director. Most of the sites are owned by the city of Ste. Genevieve. Four are owned by the Industrial Development Corp.

"We're just starting to promote the new park," said Harman, a former newspaperman who became director earlier this year. "We've been talking to four or five prospects."

The new park already has water, utilities and sewer facilities.

Harman taught high school and worked at newspapers in St. Louis before becoming a city administrator in Sullivan, Mo., and then St. Clair, Mo. He has been busy in his new position as economic development director.

Value City Discount Stores vacated the former Grandpa's building in Trautman Park, but it will be occupied isoon, Harman said.

"It's just a matter of time until the new tenant will make an official announcement," he said.

Two other companies are looking at the Ste. Genevieve area Holnam Concrete, and Continental Cement.

Holnam has said it would bring about 200 jobs and a $500 million plant to the north end of St. Genevieve County. The company bought 3,600 acres in Ste. Genevieve County and another 400 acres in nearby Jefferson County.

Continental Cement is planning to build a $150 million plant, with 75 to 80 new jobs.

Plans are already intact to build a new roadway from Highway 61 to the plant sites near the Mississippi River.

Meanwhile, Eric Scott Leathers and National Vinyl Co. are the two largest Ste. Genevieve employers in Trautman Park. Eric Scott, founded in 1985, employs about 200 people. The vinyl company has 240 workers.

The Trautman Industrial Center and the new Parc Ste. Genevieve offer rail, river port, highway and airport access. Both are less than a half-dozen miles from Interstate 55. A rail facility and the Mississippi River are not far off, and Perry Municipal Airport, with a 7,000-foot lighted concrete runway, is about 10 miles away.

Ste. Genevieve is just one of several areas in Southeast Missouri boasting industrial parks. Other Southeast Missouri area industrial parks are in the immediate Cape Girardeau area, one in Perryville, three in the Jackson area and the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority in Scott and Cape Girard-eau counties. Industrial sites are also available in Marble Hill and Sikeston.

Next month: 730 Nash Road Industrial Park in Cape Girardeau.

AN INDUSTRIAL AREA

What Trautman Industrial Center and the new Parc Ste. Genevieve offer:

Access by:

• Rail
• River ports
• Highway
• Airports

Where the other industrial parks are in the area:

Cape Girardeau

• Nash Road Industrial Park
• 630 Industrial Park
• 730 Industrial Park
• Cape West Business Park
• Rust Avenue Industrial Park

Jackson

• Lang Industrial Site
• Meyer Industrial Site
• Seabaugh Industrial Park

Perryville

• Perryville Industrial Park

Scott County

• Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authorit

Other

• Industrial sites are also available in Marble Hill and Sikeston.