EMPLOYMENT SECURITY OFFICE SET TO RELOCATE

The near future holds a new location for the Cape Girardeau office of the Missouri Division of Employment Security.

A bid was awarded May 10 to a Columbia man, Mike Kelly, for the office to lease space on Girardeau Court off Independence, a state official said Tuesday.

"What he's proposed is a new (building)," said the official, Jim Hofmann, leasing coordinator with the Missouri Office of Administration's Division of Design and Construction in Jefferson City. "There's nothing on that lot now."

The office is now at 1219 N. Kingshighway, a location where it has operated for about 10 years. The space is leased from Boatmen's Bank of Cape Girardeau, Hofmann said.

When the office will move to the new facility is unknown. Hofmann said Kelly has 210 days from the notice of the award to get the site ready.

Kelly's bid was chosen from among three others. The move will reduce the office's space by almost 2,000 square feet, from 7,960 to 6,000, while raising its rent from $48,585 a year to $62,900, Hofmann said.

But the new site will at least double the parking spaces the office has for its use.

Currently, the office has between 20 and 30 available parking spaces, said office Supervisor Danny Freeman. Hofmann said 60 parking spaces will be available for the office at the new facility.

The lease at the current location had specified that the office needed 80 spaces, according to Hofmann.

Jackie Cecil, the office's manager, said that although parking has been a problem, it's not a reason the office is moving.

"That's one of our needs, ample parking," he said. "We have a lot of people come in this door. At any given time we have 20, 30, or 40 people parked out there. Just our employees alone are 22 people."

Hofmann said the division competitively bids the lease space whenever the options are up on a lease. That's the case with the local office, he said.

"An evaluation team of Employment Security people have gone through and looked at the bids and the sites proposed, and it's been determined this is the best for the state of Missouri.

He said he couldn't specify one reason that the new location had stood out.

"We go through quite a lengthy evaluation process. It's difficult to explain it in a short way over the phone."

The new location, Hofmann said, had been the least expensive of the proposals that had met the division's minimum specifications.

Two major concerns that come up when most any facility is considered for lease space are indoor air quality and handicapped accessibility, Hofmann said.

Handicapped accessibility is required by state law, he said. In addition, Hofmann said, the division is making sure that the new facility meets standards set up by the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, which takes effect Jan. 26.

Cecil said he hadn't been aware of a bid being accepted yet on a new location for the office.

"We're looking forward to a ... new and modern building," he said.