County may use design-build concept with new courthouse

Cape Girardeau County commissioners said they have their homework cut out for them in planning for a new courthouse in the late summer of 2018.

The commission is considering a traditional design or a design-build process.

The traditional design requires the commission to select an architect, the architect creates designs of the buildings, the commission approves designs after adjustments are made, and the commission receives bids from contractors.

A design-build process involves an architect and contractor and possibly an engineer forming a team.

Cape Girardeau deputy city manager Molly Hood talked to the commission March 6 about one of Cape Girardeau’s design-build projects: a new police station and fire station.

Hood said having an architect and contractor work together from the beginning speeds up the project.

“This other method seems like it’s better,” commissioner Paul Koeper said of design-build.

Unlike Cape Girardeau, the county does not have staff that can provide input on a building. The commission will consider hiring a design-build criteria consultant.

The commission, however, has not decided which design method it wants to use.

Associate commissioners Charlie Herbst and Paul Koeper prefer building a new courthouse, most likely on Missouri Street. They also advocate renovating the current courthouse and the current county administration building. The new courthouse would include six courtrooms.

Herbst expects the plan would cost between $15 million and $20 million dollars. The county would sell municipal bonds through a bonding company, and the revenue source for those bonds would be through the use tax approved by the voters in 2015, Herbst said.

“I hope it’s closer to $15 million,” Koeper said.

The use tax brings in a little over $900,000 a year, Herbst said.

Herbst said the county has to account for what it wants versus what it needs. The county needs more courtroom space and space for judges’ offices, prosecutors’ offices and circuit-clerk offices, Herbst said.

The county wants to put the assessor, recorder and collector on one floor in a new courthouse, Koeper said. Those three offices account for 80 percent of the county’s interactions with the public.

The county also would like to expand its jail.

A new courthouse is essential to the county’s needs, but Koeper said it does not need to be the Taj Mahal.

The county hopes more courtroom space will speed up court cases and move people more quickly out of the jail, Herbst said.

Herbst gave the example of a murder trial happening in Jackson and malpractice civil trial happening in Cape Girardeau at the same time, creating at least a week of deadlock for most court proceedings.

Herbst and Koeper said increasing the efficiency at the courthouse could eliminate the need to expand the jail. They also are willing to keep all county offices in the administration building.

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