Cape Girardeau Public Schools builds for growth and plans for more

The Cape Girardeau Public Schools Board of Education voted to accept a bid for the renovation of the former Red Star Baptist Church building, located at 1301 Main St. in Cape Girardeau.

The district purchased the building in December 2022 to be the new home of Cape Central Academy. District officials previously stated the building will be complete and the Academy can move in and start classes for the 2024-25 school year.

The board authorized district superintendent Howard Benyon to negotiate a contract with Sides Construction Co. out of Jackson for a cost not to exceed $2.7 million. Benyon said bids were requested from five contractors, but only two responded -- Sides Construction and Kiefner Brothers Inc. out of Cape Girardeau.

Benyon stated the original bids that came in were over the $2.2 million budgeted for the renovations. He said Sides Construction worked with the district and through a "value engineering" process was able to identify $114,000 in savings.

A proposal from Sides Construction attached to the meeting's agenda listed multiple areas where costs could be lowered, including choosing less expensive materials for some doors, windows and plumbing fixtures.

In addition to these savings, Benyon said money saved from the construction of the indoor athletic complex at Cape Central High School will be shifted over to help cover the extra costs for the Academy renovations.

Plans for CTC expansion

Brock Crowley, director of the Cape Career and Technology Center, presented initial concepts for a planned expansion of the CTC. The two main areas of expansion include building new training facilities for the welding program and the Fire Science Academy.

Crowley said the funding for the expansion comes from $5 million allocated from the state for improvements to CTC programs as well as $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.

The new welding program building would be built to the east of the existing Mineral Area College building, which Crowley said would include a large welding shop, a lab area and four classrooms.

He said providing this new space to the welding program will open up three existing shops and classrooms and allow expansion and addition of other programs, such as plumbing, agriculture and business management.

Crowley said his plans for expansion of the Fire Science Academy is to build a state-of-the-art facility for emergency response training not just for CTC students, but the City of Cape Girardeau and surrounding communities as well.

The conceptual plans Crowley presented to the board included a fire station with command center and classroom, as well as areas for driver training, railway incident simulations and urban search-and-rescue training.

The intention, according to Crowley, would be to utilize the $3 million in ARPA funds to build the facility. He said the ARPA funds are contingent on "in-kind matches" in collaboration with the school district and the City of Cape Girardeau.

Crowley said he had been in discussions with Randy Morris Jr., Cape Girardeau fire chief, and Kenneth Haskin, Cape Girardeau city manager, regarding 8.5 acres south of Southern Expressway, near the intersection of South Sprigg Street and La Cruz Street in Cape Girardeau. He said Morris and Haskin are willing to take his ideas to the City Council to discuss the possibility of donating the land as part of the in-kind match for the ARPA funds.

Crowley said administrators of the Jackson and Cape Girardeau fire departments both expressed a willingness for the CTC to eventually take over firefighter training for the area.

He said the new Fire Science facility at CTC would benefit both Jackson and Cape Girardeau, as well as other community fire departments, saving them money on sending firefighters out of state for training and bringing in revenue to the city.

Benyon said the plans for CTC's expansion of the welding and fire science programs are only conceptual at this stage.

"These are big ideas and we're trying to get the right people in the right places to have conversations to find funding through grants and matching donations," Benyon said. "We can't as a district foot the bill for this, but there are a lot of people that are interested in seeing this move forward."

Editor's note: This story has been edited to correct the location of the area for potential training site.