Fiber-optic lines being installed in business park

Calling it the "final piece" of infrastructure needed to develop Greater Cape Girardeau Business Park, a group of local officials and economic development representatives on Wednesday toured a large fiber-optic cable installation project by AT&T.

AT&T employees led Cape Girardeau Mayor Harry Rediger and assistant city manager Molly Hood, Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce president and CEO John Mehner, state Rep. Kathy Swan, reporters and others through the project. When completed, the project will offer access to fiber-optic capability to future tenants of the business park and many businesses and homes in Jackson.

The group, which gathered on a city-owned bus, stopped in several locations where contractors hired by AT&T were working on the project near business park land in northeast Cape Girardeau at Interstate 55, exit 102.

Eastern Missouri Industries, a Jackson company, is burying more than 20,000 feet of fiber-optic cable for the project. The cable will connect business park land to an AT&T office in Jackson that can supply a high-speed network connection. Homes and businesses near the cable route, which runs along East Main Street through the Interstate 55-LaSalle Avenue interchange, also will be able to access the network by purchasing AT&T services.

The project began earlier this month and is scheduled to be finished by the end of the year. Its completion will designate the business park as an "AT&T certified fiber park," said Craig Felzien, regional director of external affairs for AT&T, which other Missouri cities have found to be a valuable marketing tool.

A sample strand of micro fiber-optic cable was on display Wednesday at Cape Girardeau Chamber Of Commerce. (Glenn Landberg)

Felzien said the designation signals to developers that an area is technologically ready to handle their business needs and has helped to move other cities' business park projects in a successful direction.

The project came to fruition at the encouragement of Rediger, who spoke with Felzien early this year about running fiber-optic cable to the 250-acre tract planned for the business park.

"We really expedited this; we did it in kind of record time because we saw that it was a good use of capital dollars," Felzien said.

The cost of the project by AT&T won't be shared, Felzien said, because the company doesn't release investment numbers on individual projects. But Felzien said AT&T has invested over $35 million on wired and wireless networks in the Cape Girardeau and Jackson region and more than $3 billion in Missouri during the past few years. The $35 million does not include the cost of the current project.

Rediger and Mehner said they see the project as a key for marketing the business park, which has several candidates interested in building facilities there. The city-owned park landed its first tenant earlier this year when Pepsi Mid-America announced it would build a distribution center north of LaSalle Avenue. The center, set open in 2015, will hire 75 to 100 people.

Mehner oversees marketing of the business park development through Magnet, an economic development organization that contracts with municipalities. He said the fiber-optic project, combined with other work to place utilities and roads in the business park, fills the needs for infrastructure and tools used in marketing.

"It's all in place now," Mehner said. "There's a huge difference in telling everybody there's going to be a business park, and getting to the point where we are now, where people now see building, and timelines, and water, sewer and power, and fiber optic and all those things. Consequently, we have additional prospects."

The city, using funds from a Transportation Trust Fund tax approved by voters, built roads to the area that holds the business park land before it became city-owned in late 2012. Veterans Memorial Drive is finished near LaSalle Avenue and eventually will run to Hopper Road when all phases of construction are complete. The LaSalle Avenue and East Main Street interchange also is complete and has been open for a few years. Money from the operation of Isle Casino Cape Girardeau that goes into a fund for the city's use, combined with grants, is paying for installation of sewer lines, water lines, streets and sidewalks at the business park.

Southeast Missouri State University sold the city the land for the business park after plans for development of a science and technology park fell victim to the recession. The city jumped at the opportunity to have space available for incoming businesses after land near Nash Road, where there has been industrial development for decades, was unloaded in 2012 as farmland when developers found it less than desirable because it was in a floodplain. The area around Nash Road, however, remains a potential draw for heavy industry because of access to the interstate, the Mississippi River and rail.

The city bought the land that will hold the business park from the university for $6 million and makes a $460,000 annual payment.

Rediger also pointed out growth in residential development near the business park land while on the bus returning from the tour Wednesday. He said he sees the area as having great potential for "mixed use," with homes near the business park that he expects will hold smaller businesses in the property's southern half, and larger businesses -- likely light manufacturing similar to the Pepsi distribution

center -- in the northern half.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3632

Pertinent address:

LaSalle Avenue, Cape Girardeau, MO

East Main Street, Jackson, MO