JACKSON IS TRULY 'A TOWN ON THE MOVE'

Jackson residential growth continues at phenomenal pace. Jackson USA Photo/Bill Zellmer

Jackson will be recognized this month in the Missouri Municipal League Magazine as a "town on the move," though the fact that this progressive, fast-growing community is moving forward comes as no surprise to any city official--and probably not to most of its residents.

In fact, according to Mayor Paul Sander, "We are the fastest growing city between Jefferson County (south St. Louis) and the Arkansas line, in a neck-to-neck race with Farmington (to the west). It is a challenge and a lot of fun to be involved in a growth situation."

Rapid growth doesn't come without headaches, but Jackson is experiencing the kind that most smaller cities want to have. The community of about 10,000 (though that figure is bound to jump with the next census) authorized more than $21 million worth of commercial and residential construction last year, a record, the mayor said.

And while the Wal-Mart super center, the Mercantile Bank and the St. Paul's Lutheran Church multipurpose building accounted for a big chunk of it, Jackson also approved eight additional subdivisions in 1998. The city has been averaging about 113 new homes a year for the last several years (and on the outskirts, a substantial number also are going up).

Sander said representatives of other small communities--most of which are not growing much--routinely seek out local officials to discover "how they can make happen what's happening in Jackson. "

Jackson's biggest commercial project at the moment is Wal-Mart, which has long had a presence in the city but is now replacing its old store with a larger building on Highway 72. This, the mayor explained, will be a community super center (125,000 square feet) as opposed to the larger regional super center (175,000 square feet) located six miles away, with a direct interstate exposure, at Cape.

"We're cooperating with Cape Girardeau, but 'we're not talking about combining with them, and they're not interested in combining with us," Sander said. "That's not going to happe~n."~

Still, Wal-Mart must have seen sustainable growth in Jackson to build another super center of any kind so near Cape. Sander said company officials told him a key factor was that sales increased at the old store in Jackson when the Cape center went up several years ago.

Mercantile Bank is building across the busy highway from Wal-Mart, and 1999 is off to fast start. Buchheit's, of Perry County fame, has announced plans to erect a 60,000-square foot general-purpose store near Interstate 55.

And so, commercial growth is evident, along with residential. The mayor says you have to have both because "the sales tax that is created through commercial business is the lifeblood of a growing community."

Sander, whose family roots in Jackson go back generations, sees Jackson becoming less of a bedroom community for Cape as commercial growth continues. If a town has chiefly a residential population without the supporting commercial backbone, "you don't have the tax base you need to supply services for those residents," he added.

Commercial growth gives a city the revenues it needs to put in the infrastructure (water, sewer, streets, library, etc.) "everything that makes a city tick. " It also enables a city to continue to fund services without a tax increase.

One service that may be unique to Jackson is free trash pickup.

"I think we may be the only people in the world who have free trash pickup," Sander said.

"We do have problems. Every town does. But the elected people and the appointed officials are trying," he said. "I think the people can see that the effort is being put forth.

"I can guarantee that the Planning and Zoning Board and the City Council (members) put in many, many hours to ensure that all this goes through the normal channels and that everyone is treated equally. When I became mayor in 1993, the City Council usually had one-page agendas at our Monday night meetings. Now it's common to have three- and four-page agendas."

Some people would like to see slower growth, Sander acknowledged, "and I kinda feel that way too. But the positives outweigh the negatives."

Jackson officia~ls ~a~ren'~t ~cont~e~n~t to just allow events to occur. They are trying to make them happen. For example, ~~~~~when the community's largest employer, the Lee-Rowens plant, was considering shutting down either its Jackson or Memphis plant, community off~cials went to work to convince Lee-Rowens to keep the local plant open, and the company did. And while a number of employees have transferred from Memphis, the mayor says about 100 jobs were also created.

But Sander and other leaders want more industry. To that end, the city has purchased a 60-acre tract on Highway 61 northeast of town for an industrial park, in hopes of creating more jobs, opportunities for young people, more sales tax, etc.

From an infrastructure standpoint, "Are we growing too fast?" the mayor asks rhetorically. And quickly supplies the answer: probably. But it's much better to be growing a little too fast than to be going backward.

One of the most obvious signs of rapid growth is traff~c congestion. Jackson's may not compare with St. Louis (but then no one wants it to) "but we have a whole lot more traff~c than we used to," particularly at 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. between Jackson and Cape, the mayor observed, and the city wants to imorove cond~ition~s.

Highway 72, the main conduit between the communities, was widened in recent years, the interchange with I-55 improved, and now the city is working with the Missouri Department of Transportation to effect an interchange at Oak Hill, a few miles to the north.

Another interchange would make Jackson more accessible and would impact, favorably, Jackson business, the mayor believes. To that end, the city is extending Main Street east, in two phases. The first is from Shawnee Boulevard to Oak Hill Road and is under contract. The second phase, from Oak Hill to I-55, will not be constructed until MoDOT funds the Oak Hill interchange.

What draws new residents? Besides the quiet small-town atmosphere, there are the usual city amenities, including a progressive street construction and maintenance program and an unusually low crime rate. Another is that Jackson's school district gets high marks in all areas, including lower taxes and few student drug problems.

The entire area is growing in part, the mayor believes, because of a new era of cooperation between Cape and Jackson and the county government. Cape has always grown commercially; it's also experiencing considerable residential growth, particularly on the north side, and Jackson is also seeing substantial home building on county roads near the city.

Sander stresses that when Jackson talks about cooperating with Cape in matters of mutual interest, "We're not talking about combining with them, and they're not interested in combining with us. That's not going to happen. We will very definitely continue to maintain our own identity. But it makes perfect sense to cooperate with Cape on matters of transportation, emergency services and those kinds of things, because that gives us a stronger voice in Jefferson City."

He said Jackson wants the appropriate state agencies to take notice that the two communities are cooperating rather than bickering.

Sander said the City Council has opposed tax increases and intends to continue that policy, except for a recent bond issue. The council proposed and the citizens approved, by a 75 percent majority, a $10.5 million sewer/water bond issue last year. The work will begin this summer.

"In the last two or three years we have redefined our zoning codes and passed for the first time subdivision codes that spell out what developers must do to meet city regulations for water, sewer, streets, lot sizes and so on," Sander said.

The city also adopted a comprehensive plan, the first since 1981.

"It's not set in stone, but it provides a guideline for future growth. It identifies areas that would be best for growth. We want to allow growth but we want to keep the small-town atmosphere and to keep people happy with the growth," Sander said.

"There may be too many regulations but it seems that's become the norm rather than the exception, and you have to have them for orderly growth. Builders probably feel there are too many but they are still building."

And currently "the city is in the best financial condition in the city's history." The council intends to keep a strong cash reserve in case of emergencies such as an earthquake (that New Madrid fault line is still a threat), and for opportunities such as buying the City Hall building on the courthouse square.

The building was previously a bank that went under. The city picked it up from the federal government and Sander figures it will serve the community for maybe the next 100 years.

The council was determined to keep city government in what the mayor calls uptown Jackson. "When you've got your City Hall in the heart of the city, that's a reason for people to come up there. .. City Hall touches everyone at some time or another and it creates a traffic flow that spills off into your business community."