CAPE SETS RECORD IN VALUE OF CONSTRUCTION

Construction and building permits didn't exactly come roaring into 1999 like a lion -- more like a lamb.

A meek lamb.

Hampered by extreme cold and icy conditions in January, builders hesitated to make applications for permits.

January numbers from the Cape Girardeau Division of Inspection Services experienced the slowest January construction starts in more than five years.

It wasn't much better throughout the first quarter.

Minus housing permits, the construction scene would have been bleak throughout January, February and March. Single-family and apartment buildings accounted for $3.5 million of the quarter's $5.3 million worth of permits.

The year, however, went out like a lion, highlighted by a $15.6 million permit for improvements to the Cape Girardeau Water Treatment Plant, and a $3.4 million Cape Place, 96-unit apartment complex.

With those projects, the city's construction numbers soared past the $60 million mark for the first time at $64.4 million, record year.

The year's record total was also fueled by a $9.8 million contract in August for construction of the Cape Girardeau Area Vocational Career Center to be constructed at 1080 S. Silver Springs Road.

The city permit office averaged more than $5.3 million and almost 40 permits a month.

"We're pleased," said Terry D. Booker, director of the city's inspection services. "I would never have guessed it at midyear."

Booker became director of the inspection services in April.

"We're hopeful that things will continue good here," he said.

And, this month is already better than last January. During the early days of the month, a number of permits have been issued, totaling more than $2.8 million.

The city has experienced only four $40 million-plus years in its construction history, with 1992 the previous record. That's when two giant medical center -- St. Francis Medical Center and Southeast Missouri Hospital -- projects shoved the year's total to $47.9 million. There were 522 permits issued that year. Two more $40 million years on the 1990s list were $47.6 million in 1990, when 573 permits were issued, and $44.3 million in 1995 on 593 permits.

The annual permit totals do not include some nearby major commercial expansions Procter & Gamble's $350 million addition to its Cape Girardeau County plant near Fruitland over the past two years and BioKyowa's $90 million expansion to its swine and poultry plant in the Nash Road Industrial Park, and the company's new $50 million food plant.

The city's construction permits also do not include work on the Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge, under construction across the Mississippi River between Missouri and Illinois.

Commercial buildings accounted for a big chunk of construction money in Cape Girardeau in 1999, at about $27 million. A total of 26 new buildings accounted for $26.7 million and additions and expansions of existing buildings accounted for another $7.3 million.

Some of the larger building projects during the year included the December permit of $2.5 million for a medical facility at 70 Doctors Park; Physicians Alliance, $800,000, at 3241 Percy; new elementary expansions and elementary schools -- Alma Schrader at 1360 Randol, $1.5 million and Clippard Elementary, $1 million; Circuit City building, $830,000; St. Francis Central Plant, $890,000; The Cape Girardeau Area Career Center at 1080 S. Silver Springs, $9.8 million; Jim Wilson office and warehouse building along Southern Expressway, $2.3 million; and the water treatment plant project, $15.6 million.

Apartments were big on the 1999 permit list.

The largest complex is Cape Place, near Sprigg and Bertling, with housing designed for Southeast Missouri State University students.

The complex will include eight buildings of 12 apartment units each, a maintenance building, and office building. Total cost of the complex is estimated at $3.4 million. Permits were let for a total of 34 apartment buildings, including 179 total units at total coast of $9.1 million.

Permits were issued for 71 single-family homes, averaging about $150,000 each, ranging from $80,000 to more than $200,000.

Work is also continuing on two facilities to be leased to the Missouri Office of Administration's Division of Facilities Management in the vicinity of the Interstate 55/Highway 74 intersection. These include a Division of Youth Services facility, to provide a day treatment center for youths under supervision of Department of Social Services, and a building to house the Board of Probation and Parole (P&P Board), now on West Mount Auburn Road. The two buildings will share the same parking lot. The buildings are in the 3400 block of Armstrong Drive.