CVB projects include bus for downtown

Within a year, Cape Girardeau could have its own trolley bus to haul tourists around town if the city council approves a Convention and Visitors Bureau plan to spend surplus tax money on tourism projects.

The plan outlines 25 tourism projects and estimated spending of more than $346,000, but tourism officials only are asking the council to authorize spending $106,500 plus a 5 percent contingency to help fund eight projects over the next 12 months.

Those eight projects include a bus built to look like an old-fashioned trolley; directional signs and billboards to draw tourists into Cape Girardeau; providing guided tours of local museums; initial improvements to transform Fort D, a Civil War site, into a tourist attraction; and preservation of the archway of the old Mississippi River bridge, whose spans were demolished last year.

"We are only going to ask them for funding one year at a time," said John Mehner, president of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce, which operates the CVB under a contract with the city.

The council will get its first look at the tourism projects plan Tuesday night. The 7 p.m. meeting was moved to Tuesday from the regular Monday schedule because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Mayor Jay Knudtson said he's uncertain whether the council will be ready to approve the plan this week. But Knudtson said he favors the tourism spending plan.

"I think this plan is pretty well thought out," he said.

Over the next two years, the plan envisions undertaking another seven projects, including securing a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Museum, purchase of a second trolley bus, more improvements to Fort D, and creation and printing of a book on the "Tales of Cape Girardeau" that would tell some of the history of Cape Girardeau as depicted on the newly created floodwall mural.

Fort D, on the city's south side, is the only surviving earthworks fortification in Cape Girardeau and one of only three such Civil War structures remaining in the state, CVB officials said.

Proposed improvements include interpretive displays and adding a replica of a Quaker cannon, a dummy cannon made of wood to mislead the enemy into thinking the fort was protected by more artillery.

Solicited suggestions

The city has about $1 million in surplus motel and restaurant tax money that isn't earmarked for operation of the CVB or the city's share of the construction of Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus arts school.

Last year, the council asked the CVB to come up with a plan on how the surplus tax dollars should be spent.

The CVB and the chamber solicited suggestions. They received ideas from more than 100 individuals and businesses.

A CVB committee spent more than four months reviewing the suggestions and fine-tuning proposed projects, said Chuck Martin, CVB executive director.

The chamber's board of directors also has endorsed the plan.

Martin said the CVB wants to keep some of the surplus tax money in reserve for future projects that may arise.

Knudtson agrees with that philosophy. "They have taken a very conservative approach to this."

A measure approved by voters in 1998 required that as of last November all motel and restaurant tax money would go to fund visitors bureau operations and pay off River Campus bonds.

As a result, funding for other tourism projects such as those in the current proposal would have to come from the tax surplus, city officials said.

Knudtson said the tax money would be placed in a trust fund and could only be spent on council-authorized tourism projects.

The CVB would update the plan and submit its budget request annually to the council, the mayor said.

The CVB committee rejected the idea of trying to fund some major-cost projects such as a water park.

Martin said the surplus wasn't large enough to fund such a project, or others such as a hockey rink, indoor tennis center or convention center.

Seed money

While the CVB expects to fully fund advertising and promotion programs listed in the tourism plan, other projects such as Fort D and the trolley system would require funding from other sources, officials said.

The goal is to provide seed money for such projects, Martin said.

"Funds provided should typically not exceed 25 percent of the total cost of a given project, with a cap of absolutely no more than 50 percent," Martin wrote in a letter to the city council.

The trolley project, for example, would cost an estimated $140,000, Martin said. The project would be done in partnership with Cape County Transit Authority and depends on securing a federal grant to pay the bulk of the cost.

Jeff Brune, executive director of the transit authority, said local funding would provide the 20 percent match needed for the grant.

Brune said the $140,000 cost includes both the purchase of the trolley bus and start-up funding to publicize the service.

Tourism officials envision a trolley bus that would make stops at Cape Girardeau motels to pick up tourists and transport them around town to the city's various attractions.

But Brune said it would do more than just haul tourists.

"It would be another form of public transportation," Brune said. The trolley bus would operate in Cape Girardeau's downtown but also make other stops around the city, he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123