Paperwork, grading makes TTF 6 list for Veterans Drive extension

A final decision on whether to extend Veterans Memorial Drive won’t be made by voters next year, but rather in 2025, members of a Cape Girardeau city advisory committee said Monday.

But that hasn’t stopped the advisory board from laying the groundwork for the project by proposing to spend $2.3 million on design, property acquisition and grading work.

The project would extend Veterans Memorial Drive from Hopper Road south to the Route K area.

It is estimated to cost about $6 million, but committee members said they want the project done in two phases because of the cost.

Committee member John Voss expressed concern about including grading work as part of the Transportation Trust Fund 6 program when there is no certainty voters in 2025 will approve the millions of dollars needed to construct the roadway.

“I would prefer to do paperwork and not dirt work on TTF 6,” Voss said.

Voters will decide next year whether to extend the Transportation Trust Fund sales tax for another five years, to 2025.

Deputy city manager Molly Mehner suggested it would be “a gamble on our part” to assume voters would provide construction dollars for the project in a future tax vote.

She questioned the idea of committing to the dirt work without knowing whether the street would be built.

But committee chairman and former Mayor Harry Rediger said the road project needs to move forward.

“I think we would be wrong not to do a new project,” he said, adding he wants to include grading as part of the initial phase.

“I am fine going part way,” he said.

In previous meetings, committee members had discussed spending $750,000 on design and property acquisition before bumping the budget up to $2 million.

At the urging of Rediger, the committee Monday raised the amount to $2.3 million, which would allow for grading work to be done at some point.

The committee settled on the $2.3 million figure after board member Jeff Glenn maintained dirt work won’t occur until after a TTF 7 vote in 2025, which could determine whether funding would be available to actually construct the street.

Since transportation projects are done on a pay-as-you-go basis, the city does not expect to have funding in place to proceed with the Veterans Memorial Drive project for several years, city staff said.

If voters oppose extending Veterans Memorial Drive, the city can reallocate the money budgeted for dirt work for another transportation project, committee members said.

While the committee has focused much of its attention on that project, there are seven other projects the board favors.

They include reconstruction of a section of Bloomfield Street, two sections of Lexington Avenue, Sprigg Street (from Southern Expressway to Highway 74), extension of College Street, intersection improvements at Route K and Notre Dame Regional High School and a traffic study of the Kingshighway/Broadview Street/Maria Louie Lane intersection.

Committee members will seek public input before finalizing their recommendations to the city council this fall.

Public meetings will be Sept. 18 at Osage Centre and Sept. 25 at Shawnee Park Center. The sessions, with an open-house format, will be from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.

The tax is expected to generate $25 million.

Committee members massaged the numbers Monday, settling on $13 million for street repairs and some sidewalk improvements, $10 million for major street projects and $2 million for contingencies.

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