GREYHOUND ANNOUNCES BUS STATION SITE

Greyhound Bus Co. announced Tuesday it will open a full-service bus station in Cape Girardeau Jan. 15, nearly six months after the former station closed.

The new station will be opened at Don's Store 24, a convenience store and gas station on the corner of Morgan Oak and Sprigg, Greyhound officials said.

Gerald Martin, a Greyhound driver manager, said the company is pleased to end months of limbo and finally open a new station here.

He said Don's Store 24 appears to be an ideal site for the facility.

"It's open 24 hours a day, there's seating inside and there's food service, so it's an ideal location," said Martin. "There's also plenty of room on the site for the buses to get in and out. We think it will be a good spot for a long time."

Donald Caldwell, owner Don's Store 24, couldn't be reached for comment Tuesday night. His wife, Linda, said earlier Tuesday that she hadn't been contacted by Greyhound but that she and her husband are interested in operating the bus station.

The last location for the Cape Girardeau bus terminal, the Spanky's convenience store at 353 S. Kingshighway, closed July 22 because the site wasn't properly zoned.

It was the fourth bus station here to open and close since March 1990. That was when Union Bus Depot at 16 N. Frederick, which operated the station since 1947, closed during a nationwide Greyhound bus strike.

After the Union Bus Depot closed, a new station opened at a convenience store at 1101 William but was closed five months later after neighbors complained of traffic problems and noise.

The bus station reopened Sept. 4 in a renovated building across from Kelley Transportation Co. on Sprigg Street. That station then closed in June.

A month later, Spanky's reopened the bus station July 18. But only five days later, the facility was closed because the site was improperly zoned.

"We made sure to check and see that it was zoned properly first this time," Martin said of the new site at Morgan Oak and Sprigg.

City Manager J. Ronald Fischer said he was "pleased" a ticket agent finally was found to bring full bus service to Cape Girardeau. He has said in the past that he was frustrated that residents repeatedly blamed the city for the company's inability to find a suitable terminal location here.

Although there has been no full-service terminal since July, the company contracted for limited bus service to the city, using a temporary bus stop at the former station site across from Kelley Transportation.

Martin said the primary reason Nip Kelley elected to withdraw as the city's Greyhound agent was that the operation didn't produce sufficient income to cover expenses of keeping the facility opened and manned 24 hours a day.

He said that because Don's Store 24 is an existing business, costs for operating the station won't be significantly higher than the company's normal operating costs.

"That's one of the advantages of this site," he said. "There's really no overhead that they aren't already paying for."

Chuck Spielman, Greyhound's customer service representative for Cape Girardeau, said the bus station should complement Caldwell's business.

"The passengers will eat and drink there and the people waiting for passengers will use the facility," he said. "Another thing we liked is that it's a family-owned business. His wife and daughter are involved so they have a vested interest in making a go of it."

Martin said Caldwell is "really enthusiastic" about operating the bus station.

Spielman said Ozark Limousine Service also will use the facility for its Greyhound Shuttle operation. The limousine service has provided the shuttle between Sikeston, Cape Girardeau, Farmington and St. Louis since 1988.