CENTER JUNCTION PROJECT NOW UP TO JIM DRURY

If an agreement can't be reached between the Missouri Department of Transportation and a Cape Girardeau developer, a plan to improve the busy Interstate 55-U.S. 61 interchange will be delayed until 2004.

Improvements to the interchange, commonly called Center Junction, will be discussed during a Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission meeting Friday at 9 a.m. at the Show Me Center. Developer Jim Drury, the cities of Cape Girardeau and Jackson, and the Cape Girardeau County Commission have agreed to form a transportation corporation aimed at speeding up improvements at the interchange. The plan now hinges on whether Drury will agree to changes recommended by the highway department.

Under the proposal, Drury would trade land he owns for excess land owned by MoDOT. Drury's land is needed for right of way at the intersection. In addition, Drury would enter into an agreement to pay $1 million toward the improvements until businesses that are to be developed around the interchange would start generating tax revenue.

MoDOT said it won't approve an agreement, which Drury and the government entities worked out, that would swap Drury's right of way for the state's excess right of way even though Drury would be receiving approximately three times as much land. The state says it must receive fair market value for its land. Drury doesn't appear to agree with the recommended changes, said Cape Girardeau City Manager Michael Miller. Unless MoDOT gives some indication that it is willing to negotiate, the deal likely will fall through, he said.

However, neither Miller nor Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III have spoken directly with Drury. Telephone calls made by a Southeast Missourian reporter to Drury's office were not returned Wednesday.

Spradling said he can understand the highway department's displeasure with donating or giving away land worth nearly $500,000, "but by the same token we would like them to go in the direction we have promoted."Even if Drury doesn't agree to the changes, the interchange will be improved. "We'll just have to wait for the state's plan, and it won't be as accelerated as we had hoped," Spradling said.

The transportation corporation agreement could accelerate by three years the Missouri Department of Transportation plans to make improvements at the interchange. MoDOT has scheduled the construction to begin in 2004.

MoDOT wants to make $5 million in improvements that would make the interchange safer and increase traffic flow. That is to be accomplished by moving the north lane of U.S. 61 closer to the south lane and by reconfiguring the entrance and exit angles of the ramps to I-55 to make them less severe.

Traffic counts show about 15,000 vehicles per day move through the intersection.

For Jackson, expediting the improvements has many benefits. Generation of tax revenue is one both cities and Cape Girardeau County would enjoy through Drury's plan for commercial development. If the improvements were to begin in 2001, Drury estimates businesses that would develop would generate $78 million in sales by 2005, producing about $1.1 million in tax revenue.

Jackson Mayor Paul Sander says an improved Center Junction also would make a more aesthetically pleasing entrance to Jackson and Cape Girardeau.

Perhaps one of Jackson's strongest incentives is for the plan to serve as a model for construction of an interchange at East Main Street and I-55. Jackson officials think an interchange there would greatly reduce traffic congestion in the city and lead to new development. But MoDOT has not given that plan a high priority.

Even if the Center Junction transportation corporation falls through, Sander said he hopes to use the same approach for the East Main Street interchange."Our goal was, if we couldn't get it worked out with MoDOT in any other fashion, that this approach would be an alternative to the East Main Street extension," he said.

The land at the proposed East Main Street interchange is owned by Southeast Missouri State University and developer Earl Norman. John Mehner, president of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce, expects the highway commission to OK the agreement with the conditions. "Then it's up to Jim whether he wants to live with it," he said.

If Drury declines, Sander said the cities and county would look at other options. "Before we would let it go completely down the tubes we would explore all avenues to see if there was some way to save it -- if it comes to that," he said.

The disagreement over right of way took him by surprise. "I thought everyone was in agreement as to how this would take place, including MoDOT," Sander said.

On the other hand, he thinks it is fair for both MoDOT and Drury to receive fair market value for their right of way. "We have to be extremely careful how we spend taxpayers' dollars in dealing with a private developer," he said.