NEW CAMPUS PITCHED AS INVESTMENT; CITY, UNIVERSITY, CHAMBER EXPLAIN RIVER CAMPUS PLAN

Community support of Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus is a sound investment, said officials from the city, university and Chamber of Commerce.

Cape Girardeau Mayor Al Spradling III, chamber president John Mehner and Southeast executive vice president Dr. Ken Dobbins spoke Wednesday to the Cape Girardeau Lions Club at the Holiday Inn.

Cape Girardeau voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to increase and extend the city's hotel-motel tax and extend the restaurant tax to support the River Campus. The project would convert the old St. Vincent's Seminary property into a school for visual and performing arts for the university.

If the tax proposal is approved, it would fund an $8.9 million bond issue to help pay for the $35.6 million project. The university is working to raise $8.9 million in private donations, and university officials will ask the Missouri Legislature to appropriate $17.8 million for the project.

Joe Gambill, a Lions Club member and former county commissioner, said many Cape Girardeau residents are questioning why the university's Foundation doesn't fund the bulk of construction.

"I think a lot of them are going to say, Let them fund it themselves," Gambill said.

The idea that the Foundation can simply use its reserved funds for the River Campus project "is probably one of the biggest misconceptions" about the project, Dobbins said. Dobbins said the bulk of the donations to the Foundation are earmarked for specific projects or scholarships.

Unrestricted donations probably run between $100,000 and $200,000 a year, he said, "and that is really used to operate the Foundation."

The $8.9 million the university has pledged to raise for the River Campus represents "a significant amount," Dobbins said.

Moving the theater, music, art and dance programs to the seminary would free up needed space on the main campus, Dobbins said, and give room for the arts programs to expand.

The chamber has endorsed the project as an economic development initiative, Mehner said.

"We view this as an economic development of some $36 million in an area of the city that needs redevelopment," he said.

Cape Girardeau's downtown area and south side need the economic shot in the arm promised by the River Campus project, Mehner said.

Previous efforts to revitalize the area have not been successful, he said.

"You can continue to let that area go the way it is, or you can look for ways to get it done," he said.

Hotel owners' concerns about the tax increase were taken into account as the proposal was worked out, Mehner said.

Robert and Jim Drury have both endorsed the proposal, he said.

"There is a definite breakpoint at which time (the hotel tax) affects convention business," Mehner said.

University and city officials worked with hotel owners to revise the package, which originally called for increasing the hotel-motel tax from 3 percent to 6 percent.

The proposal now on the ballot would increase the hotel-motel tax from 3 percent to 4 percent and extend it from 2004 to 2030. The restaurant tax would also be extended but would not be increased until 2030.

Increasing the hotel-motel tax to 4 percent would put Cape Girardeau "exactly even" with Sikeston and Poplar Bluff, Mehner said, and would still be lower than the hotel-motel tax rates in St. Louis, Branson and other cities.

"The other thing to ask yourself is, When is the last time you checked the tax rate on a hotel?" he said.

Spradling said the proposal would allow the funding of the River Campus project and the continued funding of the Convention and Visitors Bureau at $350,000 a year.

Revenue projections are based on 1.5 percent growth in hotel-motel and restaurant sales, he said, and any revenue collected above that level would be set aside in escrow and used to retire the River Campus bonds early. The extra funds would not be used for other projects, he said.

Spradling said the city and university can't advocate passage of the proposal, but both can work to keep the public informed on the issues.

The chamber will be working with other groups on a series of informational presentations to service groups. In addition, two public meetings will be scheduled on the River Campus proposal.

University and city officials say the majority of the hotel-motel tax increase would be picked up by visitors, not Cape Girardeau residents.

In addition, they say, regardless of whether the proposal is approved, the existing 10-cent debt-service levy in the city's real estate tax will be eliminated in 2004, which will result in a savings to taxpayers.

The ordinance calling for the tax election includes a stipulation that if the state does not appropriate the requested $17.8 million by 2001, the hotel-motel tax would be nullified, and any funds collected would be used to pay off existing debt.