COUNTY SUGGESTS THREE SITES FOR DETENTION CENTER

Cape Girardeau County will submit three sites to the Missouri Division of Youth Services for a proposed juvenile detention center.

"We're going to give them options, if we even make it to the finals," said Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones.

Deadline for submissions is Sunday. The state plans to build two facilities in the region, one on the east side and one on the west.

The site in Klaus Park that was originally proposed to house the center has drawn protests from surrounding homeowners concerned about security risks the juvenile offenders might pose and the possibility of declining property values.

The Klaus Park property would be leased to the state for $1 a year.

In addition to Klaus Park, a five-acre site at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport is being proposed, as is a five-acre site on South Sprigg about a block south of the Southern Expressway or old Highway 74, said Mitch Robinson, Cape County's industrial recruiter.

The two new sites have price tags attached. The site at the airport, which is owned by the city of Cape Girardeau, will cost $9,000 per acre for a total of $45,000. The Sprigg Street site, owned by the 630 Corporation, will cost $10,000 per acre for a total of $50,000, Robinson said.

Finding suitable sites wasn't easy, he said.

"When your first desire is for something free, that makes it pretty difficult, as you can imagine," he said.

Asking the state to pay for the property "does complicate things, but I think we've got three good sites, and it's up to DYS to decide which ones they like and which ones they don't like," Robinson said.

Cape County offers a number of important amenities, he said: a well-developed infrastructure; access to Southeast Missouri State University, its programs, experts and students; and high quality of life, which will be important in attracting professionals to work at the center.

"It's going to be a lot easier to recruit staff to Cape Girardeau than to other places," Robinson said.

But Cape County is only one in a handful of Southeast Missouri communities competing for the 20-bed center, which would create 33 jobs and an annual payroll of more than $730,000.

The city of Sikeston will submit two sites: one at the Sikeston Regional Center, a psychiatric facility owned by the state of Missouri, and the second a privately-owned 11-acre tract on the west side of the city along Compress Road and North Street, said Bill Green, the city's economic development director.

City officials assume the state probably won't buy its own property, Green said.

As for the Compass Road site, he said, "It's our understanding that it would be transferred to the state of Missouri without consideration."

Green said he is "cautiously optimistic" that Sikeston will be chosen as the home for the new center.

The city of Dexter, with cooperation from the city of Bloomfield and Stoddard County officials, is also competing for the center, said Janet Coleman, economic development coordinator for the city.

Dexter is offering a 10-acre tract of land on the former Stoddard County poor farm, which is due south of Bloomfield on the west side of Highway 25, Coleman said.

The land will be offered at no charge, and the Stoddard County Commission has agreed to pitch in $50,000 to pay for an access road from the site to Highway 25 and other capital improvements.

"When we first started talking about it and found out about the project, that particular piece of property came to everyone's mind," she said.

The land is now undeveloped, "but it will need very little site preparation," Coleman said.

Scott City will submit a 13-acre city-owned site along Rose-Con Road in the southwestern section of the city, said Mayor Larry Forhan.

"What we would most likely do would be enter into a nominal, dollar-a-year type lease or whatever DYS wants," Forhan said.

DYS officials could not be reached to comment Friday. A woman who answered the phone said the state cannot release which cities have submitted sites until after the submission deadline.

The center means the same things for all the communities who want it: jobs.

"We'd like to have the jobs in the area," Forhan said. "This is a good opportunity for our city -- our region, really, to have it located in Scott City."

When Purolator Products shut down in Dexter last year, Coleman said, 400 jobs were lost. The city's economy has remained stable, she said, "but we really do need to do everything we can to provide additional jobs for the community and the county. Really, state facilities are something an economic developer would really look for. When you bring in jobs, and it's something as stable as a state facility, that's ideal."

The state had originally proposed building only one detention center, said Mark Steward, DYS director, but additional federal funding prompted the decision to build two smaller ones.