Brad Hollerbach is the Director of Information Technology for the Southeast Missourian. His opinions are his own and do not reflect those of the newspaper or its editorial board. He writes this blog primarily for his own amusement and to parody the absurdities of the world we live in. He lives with his wife and two cats that don't really care for one another in Cape.

Old Federal Building Has A Parking Perk

Posted Wednesday, May 28, 2014, at 9:17 PM

The old Federal Building finally sold, and I was immediately curious as to what was going to be done with this albatross.

The article on this website indicates that the new owner plans to subdivide it into professional offices which made me wonder, how that could be allowed since it has almost no parking?

Its lack of parking would be a big problem if this building were located almost anywhere else in Cape Girardeau.

Section 25-203 of the city ordinances mandates that the change of usage would require the owner to provide 131 parking spaces based on the square footage.

The old Federal Building may have a little more than a tenth of that right now.

However, because it is located in the Central Business District, providing off-street parking is not a requirement (Section 25-201). None. Zip. Nada. Providing parking is completely optional in the CBD. That was news to me. For those of you not familiar with the ordinances here is what it says about the district which encompasses "Broadway, Riverfront and Good Hope / Haarig areas" of the city:

"(The CBD)is designed to protect the small community appeal, integrity, character, and charm within the central business district by encouraging redevelopment that focuses on architecturally appropriate design standards typical of the city's early development history."

NOTE: The original number of parking spaces cited in this blog has been changed. It was based on a 60,000 square foot building which is what I read in an online version yesterday. The version this morning indicates it is only 46,000, so I've corrected the number of parking spaces required by the city for buildings used for professional services. -- BAH

Comments

View 3 comments or respond

Community discussion is important, and we encourage you to participate as a reader and commenter. Click here to see our Guidelines. We also encourage registered users to let us know if they see something inappropriate on our site. You can do that by clicking "Report Comment" below.

How convenient, the new owner is on the City Council, who will have to address his parking issues.

The rest of my thoughts about a potential financial conflict of interest, are on an article. Link provided below.

http://www.semissourian.com/story/2086793.html

-- Posted by notrump on Thu, May 29, 2014, at 2:30 PM
Actually Discourses, there are no parking issues that the City Council will have to address.

Thanks to being located in the Central Business District, that won't be a concern (or a cost) to anyone who owns this building.

Which might be a good thing since there is a LOT of vacant space in downtown Cape right now. Within 4 blocks of where I work downtown, I can think of at least 8 commercial buildings that are either empty or have huge amounts of available space.

Thanks for reading.

-- Posted by Brad_Hollerbach on Thu, May 29, 2014, at 3:22 PM
"Section 25-203 of the city ordinances mandates that the change of usage would require the owner to provide 131 parking spaces based on the square footage.

The old Federal Building may have a little more than a tenth of that right now."

Thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood the shared information and still scratching my head, as I don't think I fully-grasp the point.

It would make sense that the commercial building should have provisions for meeting the potential parking demands. Why should the city's taxpayers foot a commercial aka for-profit building's parking bill?

Cape Girardeau's downtown area (Central Business District) is NOT in the same league as St. Louis, Omaha, Dallas, where there are fee public parking lots.

-- Posted by notrump on Thu, May 29, 2014, at 5:27 PM

Respond to this blog

Posting a comment requires a subscription.