$23.8 million access route to casino opens
Suburban Journals
November 17, 2009
By Jim Merkel
The old National Lead Industries site in Lemay has always been a big place in the life of Tom DeGuire.
His father worked at a National Lead Industries plant on the property along the Mississippi River just south of the River Des Peres.
Now 68, the Carondelet resident has seen the property go downhill after National Lead shut down in 1981. That's one reason the retired city police officer is happy Pinnacle Entertainment will open the $450 million River City Casino in the spring of 2010.
"Where there was nothing, now you've got something, jobs, money, taxes," DeGuire said.
DeGuire was among residents, community leaders, politicians and Pinnacle representatives who were at a ceremony Tuesday marking the opening of a 1.5-mile access road to the casino.
Pinnacle Entertainment is paying $23.8 million for the road from Interstate 55 to the Mississippi River along the River Des Peres.
The project involves reconstruction of Carondelet Boulevard from Interstate 55 to Lemay Ferry Road and construction of new roads and bridges from Lemay Ferry Road to the river.
Those working on the redevelopment of the National Lead site in the 1990s concluded a new access road was needed for any project to work, state Rep. Patricia M. Yaeger, D-96th District, of Lemay, said.
In the 1990s, Yaeger headed the Project Lemay Citizens Task Force, which worked to redevelop Lemay, including the National Lead site.
One of those at the ceremony, Melvin Midkiff of Lemay, was among those who worked with Yaeger.
Midriff, 67, a retired Metro bus driver, and his wife, Gloria, worked hard for the approval of a casino on the property when it was being considered in the 1990s.
"It's been nothing but dormant, overgrown," Midriff said. "This thing here is going to bring a lot of work here, a lot of jobs."
