SEMO MAY SEEK HISTORIC DESIGNATION FOR SEMINARY

Southeast Missouri State University may seek to have old St. Vincent's Seminary put on the National Register of Historic Places.

The university is looking at seeking the designation for the former seminary's main brick building. The L-shaped structure was built in three phases from 1843 to 1871.

The seminary overlooks the Mississippi River in Cape Girardeau. Southeast wants to spend $35.6 million to develop the River Campus into a school for the visual and performing arts.

The Southeast Missouri University Foundation owns the property.

Plans call for new construction on the site, including a performance hall.

If the historic structure it placed on the National Register, the university could benefit financially.

The construction contractor could receive tax credits from the state and pass the savings on to the university in the form of lower construction costs, said Dr. Ken Dobbins, Southeast's executive vice president.

"We would have to have the contractor buy the property," said Dobbins, who will become the university's new president on July 1.

The contractor would have to do the construction work and then sell the property back to the university, he said.

Dr. Pauline Fox, faculty associate in Dobbins' office, has been exploring the National Register option.

Fox said the university would preserve the facade of the main seminary building and the stained-glass windows in the upstairs chapel.

A fireplace in the building also would be preserved, she said.

Any new buildings, such as the performance hall, would be built apart from the seminary building.

"We are planning that they would stand alone and placed in such a way not to interfere with the seminary building itself," said Fox.

"If we go ahead with the National Register, we would not make major renovations to the building that would interfere with the historic nature of it.

The future of the seminary gymnasium remains uncertain, she said. The gymnasium, built in 1938, stands just west of the older seminary building.

The university has spent some $11,000 for a Kansas City historic preservation firm to do the research and put together an application to place the former seminary on the National Register.

Dobbins said the Board of Regents likely would decide by this fall whether to proceed with the application.

The application would have to be approved by the state's historic preservation commission before it could be sent to the federal agency that administers the National Register of Historic Places.

Dobbins and Fox said the Kansas City consultants and the state's historic preservation architect visited the site last month.

Sverdrup, a St. Louis architectural firm, is designing the River Campus improvements.

Dobbins said the improvements would be designed with historic preservation in mind.

A conceptual design of the River Campus is expected to be presented to the Board of Regents by the end of the month.