Organizations plan website to promote area communities

Cape Girardeau's economic development organization, Magnet, on Monday celebrated 20 years of service, where area business and civic leaders heard about an initiative undertaken in an effort to better promote the entire region to new or relocating businesses.

After a luncheon with presentations at the Cape Girardeau Career and Technology Center, John Mehner, president and CEO of the Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce and Magnet, said the organization is working toward producing a website that will connect communities along the Interstate 55 corridor, promoting them on whole and separate merits.

Steve McPheeters, a member of the Sikeston Vision Commission Executive Academy, a Sikeston, Mo., group of businesspeople, has been researching a similar consortium along Interstate 20 east of Dallas, which includes seven communities.

McPheeters on Monday gave a presentation on the initiative, in which he called the consortium a "joint marketing effort" undertaken by the communities to draw in new businesses.

The idea of the consortium is to showcase a region's available properties, resources and incentives in one place, McPheeters said.

Communities in the virtual consortium could include Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Perryville, Mo., Scott City, Sikeston and other area towns and cities.

The Texas consortium includes communities that are considered suburban links between Dallas and other large cities that are transportation centers, such as Shreveport, La., Oklahoma City and Houston, much like Southeast Missouri cities that are nestled between St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn.

"We have a lot to offer,' McPheeters said, "but we aren't formally packaging it together yet."

McPheeters said the work of the Southeast Missouri Regional Planning Commission serves the exploration needs of developers and businesses attempting to locate in the region by providing information on property and incentives but that a web-based consortium would take economic development inquiries a step further by more quickly connecting interested parties.

To view the Texas regional economic development consortium page, visit i20corridor.com.

eragan@semissourian.com

388-3627

Pertinent address:

1080 S. Silver Springs Road, Cape Girardeau, Mo.