A GOOD INDUSTRY EFFORT

Area officials last week experienced what has become a troublesome but common event in the increasingly competitive world of industrial recruitment.

There was no huge sucking sound of jobs going elsewhere, only the collective sigh of area officials who watched a proposed $60 million redevelopment project on Nash Road that once involved an Arkansas steel company collapse as the company came up with a better deal at home.

After good-faith efforts to entice the company to move to a 383-acre site near the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, officials were faced with the stark realization that they were being used by the company to squirrel more goodies back home.

But that's business.

After months of work to swing the deal, organizations like the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce and the Cape Girardeau Area Industrial Recruitment Association were left holding an empty bag and a yet undeveloped tract of property. And it wasn't for lack of effort. Both groups poured hours into the negotiating process with the intent of making Cape Girardeau an attractive place to locate a new industry.

This was an ambitious project. The total development, including public and private portions, was estimated to cost more than $60 million. That included the purchase of the land, site improvements, buildings and equipment.

The project would have been eligible for tax-increment financing. A tax-exempt increment note in the amount of $2.33 million would have been issued for the improvements. The idea is that as private development occurs -- fostered by needed public improvements, such as water, sewer and streets -- the value of the development area increases, which would generate more than enough new tax revenue to retire debt from public improvements.

While smaller businesses and retail establishments flourish with little more incentive than a robust local economy, manufacturing companies are in such high demand nationwide that officials are forced to become contortionists through all their backward-bending.

The payoff comes when these large projects begin to generate property taxes for local agencies and school districts and when hundreds of employees pour payroll dollars into the local economy.

The whole industrial recruitment game has turned into a contest to determine who is dangling the biggest carrot. As Cape Girardeau has learned, nothing is certain. Someone, somewhere always is ready to sweeten the deal and snatch away potential development.