SEMINARY FUNDING PLAN ON HORIZON

Next week, the Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation plans to present a city task force with a proposition aimed at securing long-term funding for the St. Vincent Seminary property.

Based on broad statements by foundation officials, some type of partnership between the foundation and city is expected to be proposed. If receptive, the 19-member task force then could follow up by making a similar recommendation to the Cape Girardeau City Council.

"We're hoping the city comes in on it with us," said Walt Wildman, the foundation's consultant.

The meeting with the Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation Task Force will be March 14, just over two weeks before the foundation is to close on the 20-acre St. Vincent's Seminary property.

The task force was formed two years ago to help the foundation pursue funding sources for the seminary.

The foundation, composed of community members who want to turn the seminary into a museum and Civil War interpretive center, made a $50,000 down payment on the property Jan. 14, and has until March 31 to raise the remaining $650,000 of the purchase price.

At the time the agreement was announced, foundation members said bank loans would be sought to complete the transaction. Wildman, hired by the foundation last fall, said only preliminary discussions have been held with banks in the nearly two months since the sale was announced.

He said foundation officials don't seem concerned about the approaching deadline. "I'm nervous about it," he admitted. "...A month is not a lot of time to put something like this together."

Acquisition of the seminary has been planned for so long that the approaching deadline is not worrisome, said Loretta Schneider, foundation president.

"There's not any real nervousness."

The foundation has been trying to buy the 152-year-old seminary from the Provincial Administration of Vincentian Fathers for the past three years. The breakthrough came in a court settlement last November in which the state paid the Fathers for the seminary land taken as right-of-way for a new Mississippi River bridge, reducing the price of the property.

Schneider said community fund-raising and a membership drive are all waiting until the contract agreement is closed.

She said the proposal to the task force will require "some involvement of city government, some sort of partnership. We're just ironing those ideas out now."

She would not be more specific about the ideas to be proposed. "We want the task force to hear them first," she said.

She did say the foundation is interested in pursuing ongoing income "that may come from some tax."

Schneider said the tourism tax that funded the Show Me Center debt was designated for "anything that would create tourism and economic development. How can we continue along that line?" she asked.

With regard to the seminary, Mayor Al Spradling III has at least mentioned the possibility of increasing the current quarter-cent tax, which does not expire until 2004.

Mary Robertson, another member of the foundation board, said she has "total confidence that we're going to get this wrapped up. We've worked three long years on this. We can stand a few more months."

Discussions about holding a children's art show on the lawn in the spring already have been held with the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts.

Wildman, who said the foundation probably will be able to rent out the seminary's office space before opening the proposed museum, hopes to meet formally with the banks within days of the task force date. Some members of the task force are officials of the banks to be asked for loans.

"They'll get an idea what we're thinking about from a couple different angles," Schneider said.

The meeting with the task force is scheduled for 5 p.m. March 14 in the City Council chambers. Kent Bratton, the city's director of planning and zoning, is the task force's liaison with the City Council.

TASK FORCE MEMBERS

*Gaye Blank, Charles Daniel, Steve Green, Key Payton, Barbara Rust, Scott Shivelbine, Kevin Sapeth, Stan Thompson, Dennis Vollink, John Schneider, Mike Kohlfeld, Dan Drury, Jim Grebing, Cindy Hall, Bob Hoppmann, Han Mu Kang, Rebecca Richey, Milton George, Jay Knudtson.

*Foundation Task Force meets 5 p.m. March 14, City Council chamber.