Cape County looks at buying U.S. courthouse on Broadway

~ The building will become available when the new courthouse opens later this year.

Cape Girardeau County officials are still closely considering the possibility of taking over the federal building on Broadway, a move that would allow the county offices to relocate from the Common Pleas Courthouse.

That would set wheels into motion by the city of Cape Girardeau, which -- if the county moves forward on acquiring the federal building -- could convert the Common Pleas Courthouse into a museum.

"We're investigating all the possibilities," said Cape Girardeau County Commissioner Jay Purcell. "We have some needs with county government as far as courthouse security and needing better facilities. This could fit in well with our plans."

On Friday, county commissioners met with the General Services Administration, which owns the 38-year-old building at 339 Broadway. It will become available when the new federal courthouse under construction a few blocks away on Independence Street opens later this year.

Moving the courthouse and courthouse annex into the old federal building would mean better security and handicapped capabilities, Purcell said. But many governmental hurdles still have to be cleared, including getting the GSA to donate the federal building to the county as well as making sure it's not needed for other public uses.

"It's too early to speculate, but we're doing due diligence," Purcell said. "We're looking at everything -- from what it would cost to maintain to checking out what type of tenants we could have."

He said the last thing the commission wants to do is obligate the residents of Cape Girardeau County to something that could end up hurting the county financially.

Laura McGinnis, a GSA realty specialist, oversees the "disposal process." That's what the GSA calls the process of finding new tenants for old government buildings after the GSA builds new ones.

After the tenants are out of the existing federal building, McGinnis said, the GSA has to determine that another federal agency doesn't want to use it. GSA regional director Brad Scott, who spoke at the chamber of commerce's First Friday Coffee meeting, said no other federal agency is interested in it.

The property then becomes available for certain public uses, such as for law enforcement, emergency management, public health, education or as a shelter for the homeless. McGinnis said a GSA survey on the need to house the homeless has to be completed before the building could become available for the county.

Any government agency that takes over the building would have to be responsible for maintenance and upkeep, McGinnis said. That would be enough to dissuade someone from putting a homeless shelter there, said Roy Jones, housing coordinator for the Community Caring Council.

"It's totally unrealistic," Jones said. "It would cost a fortune to maintain that facility.

Jones said Cape Girardeau needs a homeless shelter -- it currently doesn't have one -- but not there. "If there's that kind of money to be spent to maintain that building, it could be better spent elsewhere," he said.

McGinnis said the "disposal process," which doesn't start until the building is vacated, takes about a year.

The county uses the Common Pleas Courthouse even though the city owns it. If the county decides to move into the current federal courthouse, then the municipal courthouse could become a museum, Cape Girardeau Mayor Jay Knudtson said.

"There's momentum for something like that."

But Knudtson said the decision is the county's.

If no government agency is interested in the courthouse, it would be sold in a private online auction, McGinnis said.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137