Cape Girardeau Common Pleas courthouse project underway, groundbreaking planned

Construction is underway at the Common Pleas Courthouse and Annex in downtown Cape Girardeau, and a ceremonial groundbreaking is planned for 10 a.m. Wednesday.

Penzel Construction CEO Phil Penzel said the project to transform the courthouse into Cape Girardeau City Hall is on schedule, and said the future parking structure site is being excavated this week. That will give the construction crews a secure place to park and store equipment, Penzel said.

“We’re going to be able to get a tunnel in,” Penzel said of the access point between the lower part of the structure and the basement elevator of the new addition between the Common Pleas Courthouse and the Annex, formerly the Cape Girardeau Public Library.

“We’ll be able to get that in and then we can concentrate on the new construction, along with renovating the old buildings,” Penzel said.

Penzel said any renovation project, such as the renovation Penzel Construction did in the early 2000s on the Southeast Missourian building at 301 Broadway in Cape Girardeau, will yield surprises, such as windows or doors closed in during previous renovation work.

Being able to clean up and use existing, historically significant items or structures in the building is a great opportunity, Penzel added.

An artist rendering of plans for the new Cape Girardeau City Hall, as viewed from Lorimier Street.Submitted

“There’ll be no doubt in my mind that this will be the most iconic project of my career, probably the most significant of our company history,” Penzel said. Penzel, fourth-generation owner of the Jackson construction company, said the company has been involved in a lot of projects in Southeast Missouri. “I’m proud of the Cape Girardeau County Courthouse in Jackson we just completed, and others, but this really has the potential to be of historic proportions. I’m honored to be part of it.”

Penzel added he is glad the buildings will be saved and put to good use.

Cape Girardeau Mayor Bob Fox said he’s glad the project is finally underway.

“There’s a lot of history there,” Fox said of the Common Pleas Courthouse, which was built in 1854 for $2,500 on land originally given by Cape Girardeau founder Louis Lorimier, according to Southeast Missourian archives.

Fox said as excavation work continues, a metal detector will be used to find artifacts that might be in the removed soil.

Fox said some windows in the courthouse have been covered over the years, and those will be opened up, so the building will look more like it originally did.

Funding for the $12 million project is secured, Fox said. The budget is half funded by a Capital Improvement sales tax passed in 2019, and the other half is funded by city revenue generated by Century Casino Cape Girardeau.

“People worry about the casino money because it was closed for awhile, but there’s a balance there now, and it will generate revenue as things pick back up,” Fox said. “It is a blessing to have that revenue that we don’t have to include in our budget.”

Taking the annex off of the front of the former library, built in 1922, will also help get the building closer to its original appearance, Fox said.

“It’s a big deal,” Fox said of the construction project. “It’s really something neat.”