City Redevelopment and Expansion - Cases of Southwestern Illinois

By SCANews.staff

	The October issues for Leadership St. Louis 2002-2003 class to address were city renewal and urban development. Participants arrived at Cahokia Mounds early morning on Friday, October 11th to hear an overview of the Southwestern Illinois region.  Because of time constraints and numerous places of interest, three buses then took 58 participants to three different routes.  After many sites were visited, the group congregated again to ride on MetroLink to its east end of Southwestern Illinois College.

	In the afternoon, the class toured the Schmidt Art Center and heard Col. Darren McDew explaining the role and economic impact of Scott Air Force Bass to the Southwestern Illinois region. The group ended the day with a tour of Cahokia Mounds.

	Many participants were interested to know what the other groups had seen in their different destinations.  The one-hour debriefing of morning tours turned out to be very beneficial, because everyone shared some first-hand experiences with others.

	Of many places visited, there were: Scott Air Force Base, located off of I-64 in St. Clair County, Illinois, is home to the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), Air Mobility Command (AMC) and the 375th Airlift Wing. It is the fourth largest employer in the metropolitan St. Louis region with 8,041 military
employees and 4,290 civilian employees, and has an economic impact of $1.1
billion annually.

	Scott Air Force Base completed an $80 million construction project to accommodate the move of the 126th Refueling Wing from Chicago. The move brought the Wing's 11 KC-135 Stratotankers to Scott, along with more than 300 full-time jobs and approximately 900 part-time jobs. It is expected to provide a $39 million-a-year boost to the economy of Southwestern Illinois.

	MidAmerica St. Louis Airport is located on 4,440 acres adjacent to Scott Air Force Base in the southwest quadrant of the intersection of Interstate 64 and  Illinois Route 4 in St. Clair County, Illinois. The new facility was built as a reliever for Lambert - St. Louis International Airport and is the newest air transportation facility in America. From the beginning, MidAmerica was designed as a "joint" facility, meaning the facility would serve both civilian air transportation needs as well as the needs of military aircraft at Scott Air Force Base. The runways and terminals are designed to handle commercial airliners of any size as well as cargo planes and aircraft maintenance companies. The new 10,000-foot MidAmerica runway is parallel to and north of the existing Scott Airforce Base
runway, separated by 7,000 feet of taxiway. This separation is particularly important in reducing delays because, unlike some airports, MidAmerica will be able to continue operations on both runways simultaneously during inclement weather. Passenger service at MidAmerica is provided by Pan American Airlines with daily, non-stop flights to and from Chicago/Gary Airport and Orlando/Sanford Airport.

	Gateway International Raceway is located at the site of the former St. Louis International Raceway about five miles east of downtown St. Louis at the intersection of Interstates 55/70 and Illinois Route 203 in St. Clair County, Illinois. The $25 million raceway is the newest professional motorsports facility in the United States and home of the Motorola 300 and the Busch Grand National NASCAR series.  

	The facility consists of three individual tracks to accommodate various types of motorsport events. Gateway International has been completely reconfigured to include a 1.25-mile banked oval, a quarter-mile drag strip, and a 1.6-mile road course. The grandstands for the oval track events hold approximately 60,000 spectators, with plans to expand to 85,000 seats. The grandstands for drag strip events can accommodate 30,000 spectators.  (part 1 of 2)