Cape council to hold hearings on community block grants

The Cape Girardeau City Council will hold two public hearings today regarding new Community Development Block Grant applications. One project would help fund an innovative industry lab on Broadway; the other is intended to build public infrastructure to "assist a new company in locating to the city."

Southeast Missouri University Foundation will provide $300,000 in matching funds for a $500,000 grant application to develop a Creative Labs and Industries Incubator at 612 and 616 Broadway. According to council documents, the project will provide "a unique opportunity for individuals to work with interdisciplinary teams of students, faculty and practitioners in a rich array of training courses, mentoring, creative laboratories, competitions and an inventive commercial space." About 25 jobs are estimated to result. Startup businesses that have "well-tested, innovative products and services that will generate high-skill, high-wage jobs in creative industries" are an intended outgrowth.

Dr. James L. Stapleton, assistant to the president for strategic and entrepreneurial initiatives and associate professor of entrepreneurship at Southeast, said business incubators date to the 1980s. The concept has grown from shared-space arrangements to interdisciplinary laboratory environments that encourage people to draw on the creative and business talents of others.

The Broadway lab will focus on creative disciplines such as visual arts, design, fashion and software development and contain a retail store.

The second hearing will allow comment on a $750,000 grant application intended to pay for public infrastructure as a means to attract industry.

Cape Girardeau city manager Scott Meyer said the money would primarily be used to build roads but could not give details and said more specific information was not required at this time, according to application guidelines.

Cape Girardeau Area Magnet is working to put together the deal. John Mehner, Magnet president and chief executive officer, said negotiations are ongoing so the identity of the industry cannot be disclosed, but he expects more information would be available by the city council's June 3 meeting.

The Community Development Block Grant program, issued through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, "provides communities with resources to address a wide range of unique community development needs," according to the HUD website. The block grant program began in 1974 and awards annual grants "to 1209 general units of local government and states."

In Missouri, those grants are administered by the Missouri Department of Economic Development. State funds are available only to incorporated municipalities with fewer than 50,000 people and counties of populations less than 200,000. Larger communities apply directly to HUD.

A public local entity must sponsor and oversee the state grant application. The state may use $100,000 plus up to 50 percent of the costs it incurs for program administration, up to a maximum of 3 percent of its Community Development Block Grant allocation, according to HUD.

Public notices issued by the city of Cape Girardeau for both projects said at least 51 percent of funding must go to benefit people with low- or moderate-incomes. According to HUD, finished projects must benefit low- or moderate-income people, prevent or eliminate slums or blight or address urgent community development needs because existing conditions pose a serious health threat and no other funding is available.

In Cape Girardeau County for fiscal year 2013, HUD considers median income for a family of four to be $55,000 and "low income" to be $44,000.

A third hearing will review a $400,000 Community Development Block Grant used to renovate and restore the Julius Vasterling building at 635 Broadway by Kenny Pincksten, as part of the city's 2010 Downtown Improvement Project. Final costs for the project were $763,709, which used $378,296 of grant funds and a private match by Pincksten of $385,413. The hearing is required as part of the grant completion process.

The hearings will be at 7 p.m. today in the City Hall Council Chamber, 401 Independence St.

For further details on the grant requirements and process, visit ded.mo.gov or hud.gov or call 573-751-4962.

salderman@semissourian.com

388-3646

Pertinent address:

401 Independence St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.

635 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.

612 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.