SPORTS PROJECT RECOMMENDED BY PARK BOARD

Proponents of the two leading proposals for use of excess city tourism funds have forged a single project that would expand sports and recreation in two areas of Cape Girardeau.

At Monday's meeting, t he Parks and Recreation Advisory Board unanimously approved a recommendation that excess tourism funds be spent for softball and soccer facilities at Shawnee Park and land acquisition in the northwest end of town.

Last year the City Council solicited proposals for use of the tourism fund. The fund is financed by a quarter-cent tax on motel and restaurant receipts and is used to retire the debt on the Show Me Center and fund the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Assistant City Manager Al Stoverink said Monday that based on certain financing assumptions the fund could generate more than $10 million over the next 12 years, which, through bonding, would leave $4.9 million for the sports and recreation proposal.

He said there is sufficient money available to do the complete project.

Plans call for an eight-field softball complex and construction of five additional soccer fields at Shawnee and the purchase of about 90 acres for a "general-use community park" and a "multiuse convention-community center" in the area of the Kingshighway and Mount Auburn Road intersection.

The Shawnee Park proposal and a similar recreation project at the proposed new park site were the recommended proposals earlier this year among 37 considered by the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau Advisory Board.

Park board members said Monday they were pleased that both projects were merged into one that will "benefit the entire city."

"I think we're ready to quit the smooching and slip on the ring," said board member Terry Ashby. "We've talked about it enough; let's get something done now."

The park board will take their recommendation to the council Monday. Also on tap for Monday's meeting will be consideration of a proposal by the Colonial Cape Girardeau Foundation to use the tourism funds to convert St. Vincent's Seminary into a museum and Civil War interpretive center, among other things.

Jim Grebing, chairman of the park board, said the Shawnee proposal essentially is the same one the board first proposed more than two years ago. Voters subsequently rejected two separate tax measures to fund the project.

But he said the new project includes important recreation components that weren't in the earlier proposals.

"The new park land would be developed along the lines of Cherokee Park for general community use," he said. "That's also going to have the hiking-biking trail through it that's being built as part of the flood-control project.

"Then when you look at a multi-use building on that site, I think we've got an opportunity here of unlimited potential."

Bob Hahn of Mid America Hotels which initially proposed a sports and recreation project for the new park site similar to plans for Shawnee Park said the combined proposal is something from which the whole community will benefit.

Hahn said he envisions the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau housed in the multiuse building.

"You would have had a problem selling the softball and soccer complex without this part of it, with the additional park land, the trail and a multipurpose building," Hahn said. "We've got to sell the City council on funding the entire project, and rather than all of us lose out, we've got an opportunity here where we're all going to gain."

He said the facilities would open up a whole new area of tourism from the recreation industry, which would benefit the entire city by increasing sales tax revenues. The lion's share of general city services is funded with sales tax revenue.

Bob Hoppmann, chairman of the CVB advisory board, said the board earlier this year asked the council to consider funding a free-standing CVB building before excess tourism funds were spent elsewhere. The bureau now shares its office with the Chamber of Commerce.

"I'm happy to hear the two groups are coming together with a single project, and it addresses one of our goals of a free-standing building for the CVB," he said.

Park board members said the multiuse building would enable the city to expand recreation opportunities for residents and better schedule existing programs.

"This building will greatly help recreation programs, which already have come a long way in the past 15 years," said Rick Weiser.