SOUTH CAPE GROUP BACKS LADY LUCK

For the past year, Boyd Gaming Corp. has had a stalwart partner in the majority of downtown merchants who support their proposal for a riverboat casino and complex in downtown Cape Girardeau.

But now another group of local businessmen and citizens -- the South Cape Development Group -- has started a campaign lauding the benefits that Lady Luck Gaming Corp.'s proposed resort would bring to the city.

The organization is not to be confused with South Cape Development Company, which, headed by Cape businessman Duane Beussink, has proposed a townhouse and recreation complex development in conjunction with Lady Luck's hotel and gambling resort proposal.

On Monday, officers of South Cape Development Group issued a letter clarifying their involvement in the city's riverboat selection process.

Virgil Elfrink, president of the South Cape Development Group, said Monday his organization has nothing to do with Buessink's proposal.

"We're just a group of local citizens hoping to resurrect south Cape," Elfrink said. "Lady Luck's 100-acre tract, almost a mile along the river, is going to change that whole area to make it a center for family entertainment, which will be more than just a gaming facility."

Elfrink's organization has placed several advertisements supporting Lady Luck's riverboat proposal over a competing project designed by the Boyd Gaming Corp.

"I think there are all kinds of things against the other proposal," Elfrink, a retired Cape Girardeau businessman, said. "Traffic is just one of the problems."

Joe Mirgeaux, also a retired local businessman, is vice president of the South Cape Development Group.

Mirgeaux said Monday that Lady Luck's riverboat gaming proposal would be a "once in a lifetime" opportunity for Cape Girardeau to develop a blighted area along the riverfront.

"It could take the city 50 years to do in the south end of Cape, which has been a sore eye for years, what it would take these people to do if the casino goes in that end of town."

He said Lady Luck's proposal would directly benefit one of the city's three blighted areas and indirectly help another.

The three areas: Red Star, in the city's northeast side, was badly affected by last summer's record flood, parts of south Cape, and Smelterville.

Lady Luck's 100-acre development is proposed in part of Smelterville, and Mirgeaux contended the resort would indirectly benefit south Cape Girardeau in general.

"Normally what follows when you have an improvement of this magnitude, those people will take a lot more pride in their neighborhoods and homes," he said.

Mirgeaux said the most significant benefit of Lady Luck's proposal is that it offers more than just a riverboat casino.

"A lot of people in the city don't believe in gambling, but there are things there with a golf course, a marina and many other things for recreation, that they can use even if they don't gamble."

Mirgeaux and Elfrink said the South Cape Development Group was formed to provide a way for local citizens to influence the city council's endorsement of a riverboat operator. That decision is slated for Monday's city council meeting.

"We just hope Cape doesn't let this slip by," said Elfrink. "This would be an outside gift to resurrect that end of town.

"We should have gotten started earlier, but this is an answer to the downtown merchant's support of the Boyd Group."

Mirgeaux said he hopes the council will consider the entire city's interests when it makes its decision Monday.

"We feel the Lady Luck plan is for both types of citizens, those who enjoy going on the boat, and those who are against gambling," he said.