Commissioners approve help for Town Plaza project

The Cape Girardeau County Commission voted unanimously Thursday to dedicate some county sales-tax revenue to repay loans for the renovation of the old Sears building.

The 40-year-old former retail store on William Street in Cape Girardeau is now home to National Assets Recovery Service, or NARS, a call center. But renovations to the building, owned by Greater Missouri Builders, will cost about $4 million more than NARS and other tenants will pay in rent.

The Cape Girardeau City Council has already approved a 100 percent property tax abatement for new building improvements and a 50 percent reduction for the existing building. The council also approved a Community Improvement District for the Town Plaza Shopping Center that increased sales tax by 1 percent on goods sold by retailers.

The city is committing about two-thirds of any increase in sales-tax receipts to repaying loans for the project, or about $1 million. On Tuesday, city officials had asked the county to dedicate half of any increased revenue under the county's half-cent general revenue sales tax.

According to Commissioner Jay Purcell, the cost to the county will be about $171,000.

After renovations, NARS is expected to employ 400 to 500 people.

"It's really a plus all the way around because it doesn't affect what we already collect and adds 500 jobs in the county," Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said. "And in addition, those people with new jobs might spend their money in Cape County."

Jones said that although most of the commission's business deals with the county, the commission invests substantially in city industry as well.

"We've been involved with developers' agreements in Cape Girardeau that allowed Kohl's and Sears Grand," he said, "so this certainly is nothing new."

However, most of the nine county residents at Thursday's hearing were not so receptive to the idea.

"We have better places to spend our county money," said Ralph Fehr of Jackson. "Let the city of Cape find a way to do it themselves. Cape County should stay out of it."

"When the county starts remodeling private businesses, when do you draw the line?" said Debora Lintner of Jackson. "There are plenty of other businesses that want to improve, but they try to do it with their own money, and that's how it should be."

Purcell said the county's funds overwhelmingly come from sales-tax money and in passing the ordinance the county will receive more such revenue because of NARS' jobs.

"What are the rewards to the people?" said J. Pat Wissman of Cape Girardeau. "Seems like the only rewards are to the Greater Missouri Builders company. Tax money should be spent on the people."

Commissioner Larry Bock said that when the county helps the people, most of the time it is through businesses.

"It all boils down to jobs, and here we've got 500 of them," he said.

Training costs

In other business, the commission discussed assessing the cost of training for all elected officials and reporting the cost to the state of Missouri. According to Jones, the state is attempting to find out if training is necessary every year or if it can be done only after election years.

jsamons@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245