COURTHOUSE DESIGN TO REFLECT SECURITY

Cape Girardeau's new federal courthouse will be designed to meet the security needs of federal officials eager to avoid terrorist bombings like the one that blew up the Oklahoma City federal building.

The new courthouse will be built west of City Hall and southeast of Independence and Frederick streets. It will be built back from the street, not like the Federal Building on Broadway.

"All of us are aware of the security deficiencies" in the building on Broadway, said Jim Woodward, clerk of the U.S. District Court of Eastern Missouri office in St. Louis.

The Federal Building, which opened in 1968, wasn't designed for today's security needs, Woodward said.

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, said Wednesday funding the courthouse is several years away.

Congress won't fund construction in the fiscal 2002 budget, she said, because the project ranks 25th on a list of federal courthouse projects.

Construction could take two years, meaning the building probably wouldn't open until 2005 at the earliest.

Final design due in spring

The General Services Administration puts the price at more than $30 million, with Emerson setting the latest estimate at $41 million.

The GSA continues to plan for construction of the 150,000-square-foot building.

GSA project manager Dennis Miller in Fort Worth, Texas, said a final design might be settled this spring.

The four-story structure would be more than three times the existing Federal Building and will house three federal courtrooms and offices for judges, prosecutors, public defenders, court clerks, marshals and probation officers.

Miller said the courthouse will stand out from the city's downtown buildings.

"It is going to be monumental in the sense that the scale is going to be larger than anything around it," Miller said. It will be more than five times as large as the City Hall.