TIF MAY IMPROVE RISKY I-55 JUNCTION

Highway 61 snakes through Southeast Missouri, connecting with Interstate 55 eight times between the Arkansas border and Fruitland.

There is development at many of those junctions -- truck stops, restaurants, gas stations, hotels and quick shops.

But the Interstate 55-Highway 61 connection between Cape Girardeau and Jackson is an exception. Called Center Junction, it is associated with car accidents -- a few fatal. Though the traffic count is high and the area ripe for retail, business experts say the junction's design keeps surrounding land from being developed.

"The only way to address the safety issue is to make it how it should have been from the start," said John Mehner, president of the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce. "We have to eliminate separation of the lanes."

As it stands, 200 feet of green median separate the eastbound and westbound lanes of Highway 61. That works well until drivers reach Center Junction, where a somewhat confusing maze of lanes and lights begins.

There were no stoplights before July 1995, and having the new signals has helped. According to Cape Girardeau Police Department statistics, there were 36 accidents at the intersection between July 1994 and July 1995. There have been only 33 between July 1995 and today.

Sgt. J.R. Davis said he suspected most of those 33 occurred soon after the lights were activated, when drivers were confused.

There are preliminary plans by the Missouri Transportation Department plans pull Highway 61's lanes together and eliminate some of the signals at Center Junction. The project would cost about $4.8 million, a large amount for an already tight Transportation Department budget.

Cape Girardeau County's plans for a tax increment financing district may speed work along. TIF districts are areas established by state law to raise money for infrastructure improvements by earmarking certain taxes.

The local TIF Commission is setting the boundaries for the district and plans to include Center Junction. They want to establish 1995 as a base year for sales tax figures.

The existing city and county sales taxes collected in 1995 from businesses within the TIF district boundaries -- which include retail giant Wal-Mart -- would be the base amount. Fifty percent of sales taxes collected over the base year amount would be earmarked for needed improvements at Center Junction, Nash Road and Cape Business Park West.

Part of the money for redesigning Center Junction may come from Jim Drury, who owns the surrounding land. When the two lanes are rebuilt considerably closer to each other, there will be excess state right of way on either side. Drury offered to buy it.

Scott Meyer, District 10 engineer for the Transportation Department, said there are a lot of questions to be answered about the cost of the right of way and the benefits of redesigning.

"It seems like the process would be easier than what it is," he said. "But when you think in terms of supports, the turning range of trucks and how to handle traffic during construction, it gets complicated."

He said it wouldn't take long to print final plans for a new Center Junction, but that is only one small step in the process. The TIF district must be established, and the Transportation Commission must meet and approve the plans before any work is done.

"Cape Girardeau County is taking a very interesting, innovative approach," Meyer said. "There are all sorts of great things that could happen."

Among those great things is retail development planned for after the redesign. Drury has said he wants to attract a number of restaurants, convenience stores and retail stores to the Center Junction area. He also lists a movie theater, apartments, banks and motels among the things he wants to see established there.

The TIF Commission hopes to have its district established by the end of December.