Cape looks to pave Commercial Street

Commercial Street rattles your bones. Drivers try to steer around the sunken spots, carefully creeping along, but it's impossible to miss them all.

Owners of businesses bordering the asphalt-and-gravel street near South Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau say the rough-and-tumble road is badly in need of paving.

They blame city officials for letting the street deteriorate, and they want City Hall to pay for it.

"The city ought to be embarrassed," said Terry Young, who owns Cape Janitor Supply. The business at 612 S. Kingshighway backs up to Commercial Street, and supplies are trucked in via the bumpy road.

"They are the ones that failed to maintain it. They should pay to have it resurfaced," he said.

The city council has decided to include the project in the 2003-2004 fiscal year capital improvement plans rather than delay it another year, but the eight affected property owners would pay the cost through special tax bills. City officials say paving would reduce street maintenance costs.

The $181,000 street paving project includes paving Commercial Street from where the current concrete pavement ends at Walnut Street south to its dead end at Hickory Street. Locust Street, a side street which runs from Commercial to Kingshighway, also would be paved as part of the project.

City officials included the project in the city's five-year capital improvement plan, which involves everything from streets to storm drainage. The plan includes over $98 million worth of projects.

The city council will hold a public hearing on the plan at its meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday. The council expects to adopt the plan at its March 3 meeting.

Greg Crow owns Cape Skate, a roller skating rink at 620 Commercial near where the road dead ends.

Crow said he asked the city to pave the road eight years ago, but half of the eight property owners opposed having to pay for it, and the city decided against moving ahead with the project.

Crow said the city should have done the project at that time. He said businesses bordering Commercial Street have paid their share of city taxes.

"They chose to take taxes from the properties for eight years and do nothing to the street. The city should pay for it," he said.

City officials say they want to install concrete pavement and not just put a thin layer of asphalt on Commercial Street as has been done in the past.

Not on tax-funding list

Mayor Jay Knudtson, who admits the street is in terrible shape, said the only way to pay the cost of concrete paving is through special assessments. The project isn't one of the street projects listed for funding from the half-cent transportation sales tax.

Adding it now would violate the city's commitment to voters who approved the sales tax to fund specific projects, Knudtson said.

The northern end of Commercial Street just south of Bloomfield Road is paved in concrete. City planner Kent Bratton said it was paved about a decade ago as part of the Corps of Engineers flood control project, which involved city and federal funding.

The southern section of Commercial Street has only gotten worse, Crow said. AmerenUE installed a new gas line last summer. Crow said the work further wrecked the street.

"The condition of the road is more deplorable the further south you go from Locust," he said.

In front of the skating rink, it's a bumpy mess.

Plans to pave the rest of Commercial Street with concrete also includes adding a cul-de-sac at the street's southern end.

But Crow said a cul-de-sac would be an unnecessary expense.

He said property owners would prefer a thin asphalt overlay at city expense rather than a costly concrete street that would be tax billed.

"Chip and seal would be a tremendous improvement," he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123