Cape no longer in hunt with county for former federal building

Citing a disagreement about how the space would be divided, Cape Girardeau officials have "backed away" from a joint effort with the county to buy the former federal building on Broadway.

With a new anonymous bid coming in -- only the second overall -- and the U.S. General Services Administration about to launch an advertising campaign to raise the building's profile, the Cape Girardeau County Commission appears to be the only government entity publicly in play for the two-story, 44-year-old building.

"They're acting on their own," Mayor Harry Rediger said. "Right now, it's in the county's hands. We're not in the bidding field, and we assured the county we're not going to bid against them and we won't."

City and county officials had been in discussions for months about a partnership to buy the 47,867-square-foot building, with a concept of sharing the building for a new city hall as well as for certain county offices from the Common Pleas Courthouse.

Talks stalled recently, Rediger said, when the commission told the city that the county would need the entire second floor of the building for its courts system.

"That didn't work for us," Rediger said. "We couldn't move all of city hall onto the first floor. That wouldn't be enough space for us. All of the building's a little too much for us. The first floor is not enough. So I kind of backed away from it."

It may have been a stretch, anyway, Rediger said, with an already-tight city budget.

"We really would have had to scramble financially," Rediger said. "So until the county decides what they're going to do, we're not going to do anything."

But Rediger wouldn't rule out the former federal building eventually becoming a new city hall to replace the current one, which he characterized as inadequate, outdated and cramped.

County commissioners said Tuesday they are still interested in acquiring the building, though not at any price. Before the auction was online, the county made several offers to GSA, but all were rebuffed. Two anonymous offers have come in since the auction went online last month -- the first for $25,000 and the high bid that was made within the last two weeks for $151,601. Both are well below the GSA's suggested opening bid of $750,000.

The GSA hopes that changes. Advertisements will run in newspapers in St. Louis and Cape Girardeau through at least the end of the month, said spokeswoman Angela Brees. Signage has also been placed at the building site, she said.

"We're optimistic we're going to get a good offer," Brees said.

Brees reiterated the GSA's policy that bids are "strictly confidential," declining to even say whether they came from the public or private sector. She also would not say for certain how long the online auction would last, though she suggested it would be "well into summer."

Meanwhile, the commission is moving forward in its attempts to buy the building. At a meeting in closed session two weeks ago, the commission authorized Presiding Commissioner Clint Tracy to bid on the building -- and to buy it -- if it's within a certain price range, which they would not disclose.

'Made a fair offer'

Tracy and Commissioner Jay Purcell would neither confirm nor deny that the two bids that have been made so far were made by the county. Both expressed frustration with the GSA and its rejection of offers the county made before the building went up for sale at auction at gsa.gov.

"My assertion the whole time has been, how many times do the taxpayers have to pay for that building?" Tracy said. "We made a fair offer, and they're under a presidential order to move excess government property. ... We're not trying to get it for nothing. But the taxpayers already paid to build it when it first went up. I don't think it's fair to the taxpayers to have them do that again."

Purcell is still interested in building a new county courthouse that would consolidate all county offices in one new courthouse. Legislation allowing that to happen has been passed by the state's legislature and awaits Gov. Jay Nixon's signature.

The purchase of the federal building would be a stopgap measure, Purcell said. Purcell is more sure than ever, however, that money could be saved by staff-level reductions through attrition to defray the cost of building a new courthouse. Purcell pointed to his recent move to take on the role as parks director saving taxpayers $40,000.

"I believe those savings could be leveraged" and defray the cost of a new courthouse, Purcell said.

For his part, Rediger said he is still open to the notion that the city could buy the building at some point. If the commission purchases it and then moves out later into a new courthouse, the city would be interested. In fact, Rediger said, he hopes an agreement could be reached where the city would have right of first refusal to buy the building from the county, should that happen.

"But that would be years down the road," Rediger said. "As far as the city goes, I'm not as excited about it right now because I don't think we're going to have enough space to do it. As far as the future, who knows?"

smoyers@semissourian.com

388-3642

Pertinent address:

339 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, MO