INTERCHANGE, TECH PARK HAVE MERIT

If everything falls into place, Jackson would finally get an East Main Street interchange with Interstate 55.

And Southeast Missouri State University's demonstration farm would be converted into a technology park.

The plan, outlined a couple of weeks ago, would require Jackson to extend its new stretch of East Main to I-55 and the Missouri Department of Transportation to build the interchange north of the university's demonstration farm, which straddles I-55 north of County Road 618.

Jackson officials have tried for years to convince MoDOT to build the East Main interchange.

Chances are MoDOT will show more interest now because of the university's plan to develop the 368-acre farm under lease arrangements with businesses that would locate there, particularly if some type of local funding arrangement for the interchange can be developed.

The technology park can't come about without the interchange since it otherwise would be hard to get to.

And with an interchange would come more commercial development in that area.

MoDOT already has committed to paying 50 percent of the cost of the interchange if local governments pick up the rest. The interchange could cost $5 million or more. Extending East Main would cost another $1 million. A connector road that would have to be built to County Road 618 could cost another $1 million.

Jackson hired the president of the university's board of regents, Cape Girardeau lawyer Don Dickerson, as special counsel to lobby MoDOT for the interchange. That was a good move in view of Dickerson's expertise in highway matters and the fact that he backs the development of the university's demonstration farm into a technology park.

The plan is an aggressive one.

The interchange would give Jackson, whose city limits border the west side of I-55, a third I-55 entrance and exit and would lend itself to additional commercial development around the technology park.

With future annexation northward by Cape Girardeau, the interchange could be linked with a new east-west street between Cape Girardeau and Jackson. Some visionaries even foresee extending the east-west corridor all the way to Highway 177 on the east side of Cape Girardeau. And Cape Girardeau has few other directions in which to expand.

The plan should be seen as one more in a series of developments that someday will result in Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Fruitland and Scott City coming together as one metro area.