P&Z GIVES BUILDING THE GO-AHEAD

Drury Southwest plans to build a four-story retail and office building at the southeast corner of Mount Auburn Road and William Street next to West Park Mall.

The Cape Girardeau City Planning and Zoning Commission gave the project the go-ahead at its meeting Wednesday night. The City Council must give its approval befroe construction may begin. The council will hold a public hearing on it Monday at 7 p.m.

Plans call for the building to go into the side of a hill so that it will have one row of stores facing the mall and one on the other side, both on ground level and both with storefronts for offices or stores, said Larry Westrich, director of real estate for Drury Southwest. The upper two floors will house professional offices like those of doctors or lawyers, Westrich said.

No tenants have signed on yet, he said.

Workers dug out the basement for the building a year ago. Drury Southwest expects to begin construction in earnest in about a week and complete it by the fall, Westrich said.