SIKESTON -- City voters approved a quarter-cent sales tax Tuesday that will help finance construction of a $4.5 million Sikeston Area Higher Education Center.

The tax issue passed by more than a 3-to-1 margin, 1,870 to 532. In the Scott County area of Sikeston, it passed 1,784 to 504. In the New Madrid County section of Sikeston, it passed 86 to 28.

The tax will expire at the end of six years.

The tax will generate an estimated $3 million over the six years. Another $1.5 million will come from state funding.

State lawmakers appropriated $1.5 million last year toward the project. The funding required a local match.

Proponents of the sales tax were elated.

"I am very pleased and very excited about the result of the vote," said Don Dickerson, president of Southeast Missouri State University's Board of Regents.

Dr. Bob Buchanan, former superintendent of the Sikeston School District, helped lead the campaign to pass the tax.

Buchanan said he wasn't surprised by the margin of victory. "This community has always supported education," he said.

"Our community has tried for over 30 years to secure a junior college or community college and been unable to do so," he said.

The Sikeston Area Higher Education Center will be operated by Southeast Missouri State University. Southeast and Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff will offer classes.

The state-of-the-art center also will provide job training for area industries. Buchanan said the center even could help train workers for the new state prison that will be built at Charleston.

"With the new economic growth that is occurring in Sikeston, it really should provide a boost for us," he said.

The center will be built on a 25-acre site in the city's new industrial park along Highway 61. The city donated the land for the building.

Buchanan said a local bank is expected to provide $3 million for the project. The bank would be repaid with the tax revenue.

Southeast Missouri State University's Board of Regents recently approved preliminary design plans for the building.

Construction could begin this fall. The center is expected to open in the fall of 1999.

Dickerson said: "We have entered into a new era for this university. We have accepted the challenge to meet the needs of Southeast Missouri."

Defeat of the tax wouldn't have been a death blow for the project, but it would have delayed it, Dickerson said.