FOUNDATION BUYS ST. VINCENT'S SITE

An agreement to purchase St. Vincent's Seminary for $700,000 has been signed by the owners and the Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation.

Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III hailed Saturday's announcement as "a real great day for Cape Girardeau," referring to the foundation's plan to transform the seminary into a museum and Civil War interpretive center.

The foundation has made a $50,000 down payment on the 20-acre property and must pay the remaining $650,000 by the closing date of March 31.

It already has taken possession of the seminary, however, a move designed to help with fund raising and the acquisition of grants.

The purchase agreement was announced at a press conference Saturday afternoon at the seminary, just south of the Mississippi River Bridge in Cape Girardeau.

On hand were about 50 people involved with the foundation, donors who have helped in its three-year quest to buy the seminary, along with city officials.

Foundation leaders say a public-private partnership probably will be necessary to maintain the museum and interpretive center far into the future. A 1989 estimate projected the seminary would cost $109,500 per year to maintain.

Spradling said the city would have to have an interest in the seminary before it could enter into any partnership, such as exists with the Show Me Center.

"At this point I don't know what the needs are going to be for the foundation," he said. "Right now the council is not in a position to help."

He referred to the city's tourism tax on the gross receipts of motels and restaurants. That money currently is being used to fund the Convention and Visitors Bureau, to retire the debt on the Show Me Center and to develop Shawnee and Osage parks.

The tax does not expire until 2004, and could be extended only by voters.

Increasing the amount of the current quarter-cent tax "is also a possibility," Spradling said. That decision would be up to the voters as well.

The seminary, consisting of a 52,600-square-foot main building, other structures and the original 27-acre grounds, has been for sale since 1989 at an asking price of $1.135 million. Until now the foundation, formed in 1991, has been frustrated in its attempts to buy the 152-year-old seminary. Reportedly, at least four previous official offers had been turned down.

The asking price dropped substantially a few months ago when the seminary owners, the Provincial Administration of the Vincentian Fathers of St. Louis, and the state settled a court case over compensation for right of way to the new Mississippi River Bridge. The bridge route runs just south of the seminary buildings.

Walt Wildman, hired as a consultant by the foundation at the beginning of November, said it now will attempt to arrange a multi-bank loan for the remaining money.

"The real estate itself will stand on its own for that kind of loan," Wildman said.

He said he has not yet spoken to any banks about the loans.

Getting money from banks for historical renovation is a "we'll see" proposition, he concedes, but says, "Our appraiser said the property is worth pretty much what we paid for it."

If unable to raise the $650,000 through bank loans by March 31, foundation officials are confident the sale would still go through.

"The people here today have assured us it will be (raised)," foundation President Loretta Schneider said, referring to an assemblage that included members of the wealthy Drury family and Earl Norman, the health care executive who initiated the foundation.

The acquisition won't be eased by the $500,000 pledge the Boyd Gaming Corp. made to the foundation in February as the company was vying for approval as the city's riverboat gambling operator. The letter of understanding signed by Boyd and the city calls for the company to honor its pledges once its gaming license has been granted by the state and construction permits have been issued.

Don Dickerson, who represents the company in Cape Girardeau, said the gaming commission is expected to act on the license within four or five months.

Wildman said the turning point in negotiating for the seminary came just as the foundation had decided to give up. "I was always a volunteer consultant to the board," he said, "and my advice was, 'buy it or shut the thing (the foundation) down.' In November, after we'd shut it down, things started to break open."

The break came when the seminary owners and the state settled the right-of-way lawsuit.

"The offer came back from the Vincentian Fathers at a level we could afford," Wildman said. "We'd been pretty far apart in money until then."

The state paid the Vincentian Fathers $256,000 for the seven-acre right of way, according to Thomas L. Meyer, whose real estate company handled the sale.

If successful in completing the transaction, the foundation envisions raising about $2 million for the first phase of renovations, which would enable the wing housing the chapel and theater to be opened to the public.

Barbara Rust, the foundation's first president, is confident the upcoming fund-raising efforts will succeed.

"I think money will come from far afield, not just from Cape Girardeau," she said.

A mailing list of graduates is expected to be a valuable asset.

Schneider said the organization is taking a leap of faith in the community.

"When you do something like this you don't have a design. You don't have a manual to achieve your goals.

"You have to believe in what you're doing and believe in your own community."

Schneider said none of the organizations previously discussed as prospective tenants -- including the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts and the River Heritage Museum -- has been contacted about contracts yet.

Meyer said the $700,000 is less than the seminary had been sold for in two previous sales that fell through.

"The Vincentians are happy," he said. "They know it will have tender loving care."