Vision 2020 chair wants to improve riverfront

Jess Hopple is serious about improving the Cape Girardeau riverfront.

Hopple, chairman of the Vision 2020 Transportation Committee, is putting together a subcommittee and organizing efforts to spruce up the riverfront and make it more accessible and appealing to those traveling the river and for those who live here.

Vision 2020 is a planning group organized to look at the city's long-range needs. Hopple shared some of his ideas with the Cape Girardeau City Council last week.

"It's something I've thought about for years," he said. "I've seen the progress that has been made on riverfronts, how they have developed and brought life back into the city."

A special meeting will be called in January, Hopple said, with officials from the Corps of Engineers, the Department of Natural Resources, the Department of Transportation and the conservation commission.

Hopple said he hopes the groups will provide insight and ideas that will help the subcommittee come up with a long-range plan.

Hopple has several lofty goals in mind. He said he'd like to see restaurants overlooking the river, more boat docks and the construction of walking and driving trails from the Emerson Memorial Bridge to Trail of Tears Park.

Hopple said he wanted to organize this committee because there are other entities that discuss and consider road projects.

"I couldn't see any sense in reinventing the wheel," he said. "I wanted to do something that hasn't already been done."

Would need fund-raising

Hopple said once the plans are made, a massive fund-raising effort would begin. But he said he believes the money won't be hard to find once people see what the riverfront could become.

Catherine Dunlap, executive director of Old Town Cape, is on the Vision 2020 committee.

"We're really excited about it, and Jess brings a lot of energy and expertise to the project," she said. "Riverpoint Park is a great asset to downtown and several organizations are utilizing it, but we need to do more to make the area more attractive to tourists and residents so they can enjoy our greatest resource."

Work is already being done on the riverfront that should make the area more useful.

Improvements are being made to the Red Star Access, a dock that used to be called Honkers Landing. It will be the camping spot for Lewis and Clark re-enactors during a national three-year celebration of the explorers' expedition 200 years ago, said Jane Jackson, an organizer with the local Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission Group.

The access will go with the Red House Interpretive Center, which is being built near the riverfront near St. Vincent's Church. The Red House is a replica of the house in which Meriwether Lewis, one of the explorers, met Cape Girardeau founder Louis Lorimier.

bmiller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 127