County offices moving from courthouse annex to Bloomfield location this week

The satellite offices of the Cape Girardeau County assessor, collector and clerk will move this week from their current location in the Common Pleas Courthouse Annex in downtown Cape Girardeau to new offices on Bloomfield Street, county officials announced Tuesday.

Cape Girardeau County Commissioner Charlie Herbst, who was involved in coordinating the move, said county officials have been seeking to relocate the satellite offices since �probably two to three years ago.�

He said the offices have been in their current location at 44 N. Lorimier St. since 1980.

�That space is an old one,� he said. �It just needed to be reworked.�

The new offices, he said, will be better suited to the business conducted in the satellite offices, featuring more parking space and closer to Kingshighway. It will house the roughly five employees who comprise the assessor�s, collector�s and clerk�s satellite presence.

Earl Leavitt, right, of Boulder Construction LLC, drills a hole Tuesday for what will be the counter window in the new Cape Girardeau County auxiliary offices.TYLER GRAEF

Herbst said the county chose the new location, 2311 Bloomfield St., in part because the Missouri attorney general already keeps an office in the same building.

�That was one of the things that I found attractive about that location,� he said. �Being a government [entity], it was good to see that there were already government offices in there.�

The strip of office fronts, known collectively as the Bloomfield Road Business Center, is managed by Cape Girardeau real estate developers The Rhodes Group. Herbst said the county�s monthly rent will be $1,367.71. The county currently occupies the annex building at no cost, per its contract with the City of Cape Girardeau, which owns the building and the roughly four acres on which it sits. The courthouse itself is owned jointly by the city and county 50-50, Herbst said.

The county has asked the city to allow it to vacate the building, and though the request is still being reviewed, city and county officials both said they foresee no problems that would prevent the county from doing so.

As for the future of the annex building, deputy city manager Molly Mehner said Tuesday the city doesn�t have plans for how it will be used. She said the building is one of several being evaluated by St. Louis firm Chiodini Architects, which the city hired to help determine prospects for a new city hall. Chiodini Architects is expected to deliver a report in mid-September with recommendations, Mehner said, but the annex and courthouse will likely be used for other purposes.

�I think it�s fair to say that in terms of square footage, the courthouse and annex don�t make the best sense for a city hall,� she said. �But we�re working on making them marketable or getting someone else in there to make the most of the space.�

The assessor�s, collector�s and clerk�s offices will be closed Thursday and Friday while the staff makes the move, and will reopen at the new location Monday. During this time, services will be available at the County Administration building at 1 Barton Square in Jackson.

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573)388-3627