Sikeston business parks, retail sites show growth

In the seven months that Ed Dust has been director of the Sikeston Department of Economic Development, he has set some rather lofty goals.

Dust aims to bring 100 to 200 new jobs to the city each year for the next five years.

And he's well on his way, with some new jobs expected to arrive this spring.

When the city's first Walgreens store opens it will create 25 to 30 new jobs.

The pharmacy and retail store is under construction at the intersection of Malone Avenue, Main Street and Lake Street. It will be the anchor store at The Shops at Lake Crossing, an open-air mall being developed by Koman Properties of St. Louis.

"There'll be about 44,000 square feet of retail space at the mall in the middle of the town," said Dust, a former economic developer for Poplar Bluff.

The mall is being built on 7.6 acres of land where the former Missouri Highway Department building stood.

According to Jim Koman, president of Koman Properties, the site offers about three times the traffic count of another big retailer in Sikeston -- the Wal-Mart Supercenter store.

Dust said jobs are expected to be added at Tetra Pak, a liquid-food processing and packaging center. There are currently about 100 workers there. Some product lines are being moved from Fort Wayne, Ind. to the plant in Sikeston and other cities.

Tetra Pak will add to its capabilities the production of quarts, pints, half-pints and 8-ounce gable-top cartons. Tetra Pak officials say expanded production at the plant will be gradually increased over the next six months.

Good Humor-Breyers, a maker of ice cream novelties, continues to be the major employer in Sikeston. Located in the Business and Technology Park, it employs more than 800 workers.

"It's in a great building in a 600-acre industrial park that we continue to market," said Dust.

Lambert's Cafe, for decades a popular stop for tour buses and other travelers, moved into a new, larger building last year, about three blocks west of it former location on busy Malone Avenue.

Dust said Lambert's has become popular with soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division stationed at Fort Campbell, Ky.

"A lot of helicopters land at the airport and Lambert's sends transportation to take them to the cafe, then back to the airport. Pilots and crews fly here as part of their training exercises," said Dust.

A 450,000-square-foot building that had been vacant since 1998 was sold to a St. Louis investment group last year. Dust is working with the owners on marketing it.

In southeast Sikeston, dozens of residential projects are under way. "A lot of people are at work building middle-income homes," said Dust.