COMPANY TO BUILD AT PORT AUTHORITY

Consolidated Grain & Barge Co., headquartered in Mandeville, La., has signed a lease with the Southeast Missouri Regional Port Authority for 16 acres to build a grain elevator and barge facility.

Consolidated's lease is the fourth long-term lease at the port authority.

Other long-term leases are with Girardeau Stevedores, First Missouri Terminal and Midwest Agri-Chemical Co. There also are two temporary leases at the port.

Port Board Chairman W. H. Winchester announced the $3.4 million facility during the board's December meeting Monday at Scott City.

The project will include a 350,000-bushel concrete storage bin, facilities for barge loading, truck unloading and rail-car loading and unloading.

Attending Monday's announcement were Gregg Beck, regional manager of Consolidated Grain, working out its Mound City, Ill., site, and John Sutton, manager of Consolidated's site in Cape Girardeau.

"We're looking forward to the facility at the SEMO Port," Beck said. "These negotiations have been going on a long time."

Winchester said negotiations between Consolidated and the port had continued for three to four years.

Port Executive Director Dan Overbey said that along with the four long-term leases, the port has temporary leases with Xylem and Cape Fleeting.

Beck said Consolidated hopes to start its operation in late 1996 or early 1997.

"We'd like to have everything in place for the 1996 harvest season, but this is a two- to three-year project," he said.

Consolidated has had a grain operation at 500 La Cruz in Cape Girardeau since 1986. The company has operated at Mound City since 1982.

"We have a 1.2 million-bushel facility at Mound City," Beck said. "And we handle a lot of coal there."

Mound City is situated along the Ohio River, north of its confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

Consolidated's port operations will start with eight employees, but that figure is expected to double or triple the first year.

The port has taken some big steps this year in its efforts to become a Midwest hub for transportation.

The port, which has formed a separate corporation, Semo Port Railroad Inc., recently signed an agreement to buy 5.8 miles of railroad track from the Thebes, Ill., bridge north through Scott City to the port and into Cape Girardeau. Owning the rail line will give the port access to the Burlington Northern, Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads.

The port also has received a General Motors locomotive, formerly Army property, from Fort Carson, Colo.

The port moved its first carload of freight on the rails earlier this month.

The first bid has been let for the Nash Road extension, from Interstate 55 to the Port site, and groundwork is under way.