Win-win plan

Providing incentives to business and industry has long been the key to building prosperous communities. Such incentives have been given many times to Cape Girardeau-area projects that have resulted in hundreds of steady jobs. Recently, Cape Girardeau officials and the Cape Girardeau County Commission signed on to a plan that will help Greater Missouri Builders to pay off debt incurred as part of renovating the old Sears building in Town Plaza Shopping Center.

National Asset Recovery Service, which is leasing part of the Sears building, eventually expects to employ up to 600 people. Its payroll and the fact that much of that money will be spent or invested in the community was a convincing argument for assistance in the form of loan repayment using revenue from a new sales tax that will be charged by Town Plaza merchants as the result of the creation of Community Improvement District. The money for the loan-repayment program will come from new revenue, so the plan won't have any impact on existing revenue streams.

This is a win-win concept: The project gets the assistance it needs for a major employment base in the community, and existing city and county revenue will remain intact for various programs and services.