By Joe Steiger, Ste. Genevieve Alderman
STE GENEVIEVE — This opportunity with Mineral Area College is truly that, a great opportunity.
We started this idea with re-purposing the Pettus Ford property, but after we showed MAC the facility, they just didnt feel like it was the right fit for what they wanted to do in SteGen.
Not only is MAC looking to expand here but they have now started working for an I-55 corridor expansion plan. They are looking for some expansion in Perryville with their facility there and also building a new facility like we would potentially get here in Jackson/Fruitland area.
The facility would be a 40,000+sqft building and adjoining parking lot, etc.
The City voted at its meeting Jan. 23 in a non-binding resolution to pursue leasing some of our city owned ground along Progress Parkway, near American Custard. If MAC would ever leave SteGen, the property and bldg would become city property.
We wish them luck and are doing everything we can to make this happen. It comes at a cost, we can only do so many projects and only have so much ground, but the whole board felt pretty strongly that this was the best use of the ground, would serve the highest amount of people and bring the biggest impact to our area. It’s far from a done deal.
Two things about this opportunity at its current stage:
We have not received official word that this grant (to actually build the building) is going to be continued under the new administration of Gov Kehoe, it was originally started on Gov Parson. And we of course have not applied and gotten approval for the $10mil grant opportunity in the Dept of Ed.
There are a lot of signs pointing to both of those happening but these two big hurdles are our first ones but we are working lots of angles to get it done. We have lots of people working on this, including our local SteGen Chamber of Commerce, they recently sent out a survey to business owners to ask them what kind of classes would be most beneficial. MAC is a SteGen Chamber member.
There are many others that are working on this project as well and their thanks will be forthcoming.
Keep your fingers crossed, we may need calls to our local state rep/senators for pressure at Jeff City and calls to the Governor’s office as well. More to come!