Community Partnership $500,000 block grant to renovate former Cape police station delayed

The Community Partnership of Southeast Missouri has yet to receive a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant to back its makeover of the city's former police station due to a delay in federal government funding. Erected in 1976, the two-story building at 40 S. Sprigg St. will serve as the social services organization's future headquarters. Community Partnership's executive director Melissa Stickel said the building will provide "badly needed space for all of Community Partnership's services for low-income residents."

"The last we heard, it's going to be the end of this month," Stickel said, referencing an email she received from Missouri Department of Economic Development. Community Partnership plans for the vacant building to include a computer lab, laundromat, showers and a common area.

Stickel said additional project plans not part of the initial block grant proposal will include the construction of an approximately 5,000-square-foot adjacent activity center to host community events.

With that, the expected project cost has risen from $1 million to nearly $1.7 million, she said. During a board meeting Wednesday, Stickel said Community Partnership voted to move forward with the project.

To bridge the funding gap, she said money for the activity center -- including administrative spaces, roof upgrades and acquisition -- will stem from a soon-to-be-announced capital campaign. But, she said, the campaign "is not meant to replace the community's investment in the project."

"If we don't hear by the end of this month, we will go ahead and kick off the campaign in October without that announcement, and it'll be just good news when we get it," she said. "We're going to move forward with the project regardless. ... It's a need for the community. It's a need for our agency."

In order to move forward, Stickel said Community Partnership will likely take out an additional line of credit. And as capital campaign funds are accrued, she said that line of credit would be paid off "so that our revenues aren't spent trying to pay the loan versus providing direct client service."

"Our hopes are that we get grants, donations and investments from the community so that we don't have the cost of a loan, long-term," she said.

Stickel said she hopes to see the project completed by late spring or early summer of 2020.

The city council voted in closed session in April to sell the vacant building to the social services organization for $100,000. Community Partnership's current administrative offices are located at 837 Broadway.