FEDS CONSIDER H & H BUILDING, MARQUETTE HOTEL SITES

Either of two blocks on the north side of Broadway would be acceptable for a new federal courthouse, says a government official involved in the site selection.

The two sites are the 400 block of Broadway, which includes the Himmelberger-Harrison Building, and the 300 block of Broadway, which includes the vacant Marquette Hotel. Both blocks are just north of the Federal Building, which would continue to house government offices after a courthouse is built.

"They are certainly sites we will have to look at," said the official, Jim Ogden of the General Services Administration regional office in Kansas City.

Ogden said the cost of buying properties will be a key factor in choosing the site, along with security issues.

The government wants an entire city block.

Ogden said Wednesday that his agency would look at the two sites if the government decides to abandon its first choice, a residential neighborhood of historic homes just south of the Federal Building.

"We would like to be close to our current building," he said.

The GSA will hold a public hearing Nov. 16 that will focus on the residential neighborhood. Opposition from property owners in that neighborhood may lead the government to look to the two-block area north of Broadway. If that happens, Ogden said the GSA would re-rank the sites and then return to Cape Girardeau for another public hearing that probably would focus on just a single block.

An ad hoc group of the Greater Downtown Merchants Association has suggested the Himmelberger-Harrison Building block as the best site for the courthouse.

A dozen historic-preservation students from Southeast Missouri State University surveyed buildings in a 13-block area of downtown in 1993. The study was presented to the city's Historic Preservation Commission. Among other things, it indicated that the Himmelberger-Harrison Building might be eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.

But John Schneider, commission chairman, said the survey was just an initial inventory of structures. He said the residential neighborhood that includes century-old homes south of the Federal Building ranks higher on the preservation scale than the Himmelberger-Harrison Building block.

"You can't save everything," he said. "It is a matter of heritage priority."

Lynette Shirrell, a real estate agent who serves on the preservation commission and aided the downtown merchants in making their recommendation, said there is a marked difference between the Himmelberger-Harrison Building site and that of the residential neighborhood.

The owners of the commercial building, Union Electric and the Oliver law firm, are willing to sell to the government, Shirrell said.

Many homeowners in the neighborhood south of the Federal Building don't want to sell their historic houses and have them razed for a courthouse, said Shirrell.

The Himmelberger-Harrison Building at the corner of Broadway and Fountain opened in 1907. The five-story brick-and-stone building housed offices and the Himmelberger-Harrison Lumber Co.

In 1921, the office building was sold to Liberty National Life Insurance Co. for $200,000.

The building's appearance changed in 1936 when the overhanging coping at the top of the structure was replaced with a stone topping.

Missouri Utilities and the Oliver firm bought the building in 1978 and modernized it. Union Electric moved its offices there when it bought Missouri Utilities.