GSA SETS COURTHOUSE HEARING FOR JAN. 25

The General Services Administration will hold a public hearing Jan. 25 on its preferred downtown site for a new federal courthouse. The site is a two-block area just south of the Federal Building.

The rescheduled hearing will be at Port Cape Girardeau restaurant. Registration for the hearing will begin at 6 p.m., with the hearing slated to begin at 6:30 p.m.

A hearing had been scheduled for last week, but was canceled because of the federal budget impasse.

Despite a new proposal to build the courthouse on a four-acre tract west of Interstate 55, the federal government still wants to build in downtown Cape Girardeau, a GSA official says.

Both federal and city officials say a downtown site would allow for better coordination between government agencies, whose offices are in that area.

"I would prefer to see it downtown," City Manager Michael Miller said Wednesday.

DSW Development Corp. of Cape Girardeau, a subsidiary of Drury Southwest Inc., recently offered to sell the west-end site to the government.

DSW officials said their site would cost about a fourth of the cost for a downtown block.

DSW's Larry Westrich said the west-end site would be more economical because there would be no demolition costs and the government would only have to deal with one property owner rather than a whole block of them.

But the federal government prefers a downtown site that would be close to the Federal Building.

The government plans to use the Federal Building for non-judicial government offices.

"We have a focus on the downtown area. The Drury people know that," said Jim Ogden of the General Services Administration regional office in Kansas City.

The Drury site offers a "fall-back position" if no suitable downtown site can be found, he said.

Ogden said a longstanding presidential order commits the GSA to building courthouses in America's downtowns.

"If cost were the only issue, we clearly would be locating somewhere other than in downtowns in America," he said.

The GSA hopes to make a decision within a few weeks after the hearing as to whether to build a courthouse in the residential neighborhood south of the Federal Building.

A number of property owners oppose the idea. Ogden has said opposition by numerous property owners could force the government to look at other downtown sites.

Ogden predicted the government would find a suitable downtown site.