SEMO joins Cape in street project

Southeast Missouri State University plans to take advantage of Cape Girardeau's Broadway widening project to dress up the Broadway-Henderson Avenue entrance to the campus with improved parking, green space and monument signs designating the school.

The board of regents will discuss the project at its meeting today. The meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m. in the University Center ballroom. Southeast plans to lower the elevation of the gravel parking lot along Broadway next to Houck Field House and pave the lot, resulting in 102 paved parking spaces. More paved parking spaces will be added east of Henderson Avenue in the future, school officials said.

School officials have previously expressed a need to improve the Broadway and Henderson intersection, but today's meeting will mark the first time the regents have had an opportunity to publicly discuss the project at length. It's the major item on today's agenda, school officials said.

"This is the logical entrance to the campus," said Don Dickerson, president of the board of regents. "It is something we really need to clean up and make better."

School president Dr. Ken Dobbins said the university has several entrances to the campus, but the Broadway and Henderson Avenue intersection remains the main entry point. "That is our front door," he said.

The campus entrance work, which is still being designed, should make the campus clearly visible and attractive to both pedestrian and car traffic, school officials said.

Dobbins said the signs still haven't been designed yet.

Southeast plans to make the improvements next year in conjunction with the city's plan to widen Broadway from Perry Avenue to Houck Place.

The city plans to widen Broadway from two lanes to four lanes at an estimated cost of $2 million. That will provide two lanes of traffic eastbound and two lanes westbound. There also will be a center turn lane in some spots along the route, city manager Doug Leslie said.

Most of the widening work will be along the north side of Broadway bordering Capaha Park and the university campus, although city officials have said two houses east of West End Boulevard will have to be torn down for the project.

The improvements include relocating the Henderson Avenue intersection on the north side of Broadway slightly to the west. Some of the existing Henderson Avenue would be turned into green space where school officials plan to install a university sign.

Some on-street parking would remain along the south side of Broadway in front of businesses east of Henderson Avenue. Henderson Avenue, south of Broadway, would remain a city street although it no longer would line up with Henderson Avenue north of Broadway.

Southeast officials would like to see traffic lights installed at the Broadway and Henderson Avenue intersection. But city engineer Mark Lester said the street project doesn't include traffic signals.

Lester said the intersection is close to the Broadway and West End Boulevard intersection, making the addition of more traffic lights difficult.

"If you don't need them, why put them in?" he said.

The university plans to bid out the section of street work in front of the campus -- from Houck Place to just west of Henderson Avenue -- and the campus entrance improvements as a single project. The city would then reimburse the university at a later date with money from the city's transportation sales tax.

University officials said they don't know how much the street work between Houck Place and Henderson Avenue will cost.

Dobbins said the school hopes to bid out the project in February. Final design plans for the campus entrance work would be presented to the regents in late February or early March so a construction contract could be awarded, Dobbins said.

School officials said the city would award a contract for the street construction work from west of Henderson Avenue to Perry Avenue.

Southeast has about $1.1 million in bond proceeds available for parking improvements, said Dr. Dennis Holt, vice president of administration and enrollment management.

Holt said the university wants to have the Broadway work in the area of Henderson Avenue completed before the start of classes next fall.

"When Henderson is straightened out, it will be very obvious that this is the entrance to the campus," Holt said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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