Target aims for bigger store at Cape site

Plans show the retailer intends to add more than 10,000 square feet to the outlet on Siemers Drive.

The retailing giant with the red and white bull's-eye logo is planning to give Cape Girardeau area shoppers a bigger Target.

Through a spokeswoman, Minneapolis-based Target Corp. has confirmed its plans to expand the store at 202 Siemers Drive, but would offer no further details.

But plans on file with city show that Target intends to enlarge the store by 11,138 square feet to a total of 107,241 square feet. The plans show that the expansion will be on the northwest side of the building into a current parking area.

Target manager Brett Bratten, who has been on the job four months, said that he was delighted that it was happening.

"We'll definitely be using our new space for expanding our consumable goods," he said. "We won't be a Super Target or anything, but it will give us room to expand our grocery items."

The store currently sells "convenient" items, Bratten said, like cereal, juices and soda.

Bratten called the work "a total remodel."

"We'll be moving every gondola and repositioning everything," he said.

The time frame is still up in the air.

"I was hoping next year, but it might be the year after that," Bratten said.

Target, the country's second-largest retail store behind only Wal-Mart, has submitted its plans to the city because it is requesting a variance -- or exemption -- from city ordinances.

Robb McClary, director of inspection services for Cape Girardeau, said that because Target wants to put that expansion where 26 current parking spaces are, it would have less than the required 1 space for every 200 square feet.

After the expansion, Target would be required under ordinance to have 537 spaces but would end up with only 468 after they remove the 26 spots, McClary said.

The board of adjustment will hear Target's request at its Thursday meeting at 7 p.m. at city hall.

McClary said he didn't foresee any resistance from the board.

"My guess is that they probably know better than we would how much parking they would need," he said. "The question from a municipal standpoint is that it would not create any overflow onto Lambert or Siemers. But I can't imagine that it would."

The plans also call for a new sidewalk near the northwest corner of the building facing the building frontage, new landscape planters, a sidewalk expansion near the entrance and restriping some parking spaces.

smoyers@semissourian.com

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