FORMER CAPE GIRARDEAU EPA SUPERFUND SITE SOLD

824 S. Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau, Missouri

The former Missouri Electric Works property, located at 824 S. Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau has been sold according to Tom Kelsey, commercial broker with Lorimont Place, Ltd. who handled the recent sale. The EPA found PCBs from site operations in on- and off-site air sampling during 1987 and it was eventually declared a national Super Fund clean-up site by that Federal Agency, one of only 34 in the state of Missouri. 

Missouri Electric Works operated on the 6 1/2-acre site from 1954 until 1992. The Cape Girardeau based business sold, serviced, and reconditioned electric motors, transformers, and transformer controls. In addition, it recycled transformer oil and copper wire. In 1990 the EPA selected a remedy including on-site incineration of the PCB-contaminated soil, and pumping and treating of the ground water via air stripping, followed by carbon adsorption. On-site thermal desorption of contaminated soils was completed during July 2002 with a clean-up cost price tag estimated to be as much as $25 million. 

Kelsey said his commercial real estate agency was appointed to sell the property earlier this year by the present owners, Morrill Development when EPA and other outside environmental consultants had declared the property to be safe from all and any environmental issues.  Glen Fronabarger with Fronabarger Concreters, Inc. from Oak Ridge was the purchaser of the 6.5 acre tract with an existing 12,200 square-foot industrial building on the northern portion of the property. 

The Lorimont broker said it was his understanding that the purchaser has plans to redevelop the high traffic and visibility site with storage units of various types and sizes.  The buyer is one of the larger concrete contractors in the area and also involved in car wash operations and storage unit development in the Jackson area. No sales price was disclosed, but the Lorimont website shows a listed price of $576,000 for the property.