Historic Preservation Commission puts Cape City Hall on endangered buildings list

Cape Girardeau city officials don’t have to leave city hall to find an endangered historic building.

The city’s Historic Preservation Commission has put city hall, formerly a public school, on the 2019 endangered building list.

The brick structure at 401 Independence St. is one of 15 buildings on this year’s list. Commissioners approved the 2019 list at their meeting Wednesday.

Commission member Alyssa Phares said the group “chose to add it to the list because of the uncertainty surrounding its future.”

The city council last year discussed the possibility of razing the building and constructing a new city hall.

But in recent weeks, city officials have proposed renovating Common Pleas Courthouse and the Courthouse Annex to house city offices.

If that occurs, there still is the question of what would happen to the existing city hall, which was formerly Lorimier School, Phares said Friday.

The two-story brick building was built in 1937 as a replacement for the original Lorimier School, which was built in the 1870s on the same site.

Members of the commission are working to preserve memories of the former school in hopes of finding a way to save the historic brick structure.

Phares said last month she and other commissioners are concerned city officials may conclude it’s not feasible to save the more-than-80-year-old structure.

“We want to put some focus on Lorimier School,” she said at the time.

The school, which served generations of children, closed in the mid-1970s because of low enrollment.

In 1978, the building was converted into city hall. The city moved its offices from the Common Please Courthouse to the former school.

Forty-one years later, city officials are talking about making the opposite move.

Over the years, the building’s historic exterior has been mostly kept intact. The cornerstone, ornate entrances and rounded windows are still visible.

In 2018, the city hired an architectural consultant to conduct a space-needs study for city hall.

“The study confirmed the challenges — and costs — of renovating and expanding the building,” according to the commission’s endangered-buildings list.

The consultant provided conceptual drawings for a new city hall to replace the existing structure.

“At the time of this list, no decision has been made, but the consultant’s findings underscore the uncertainty of the building’s future,” according to the commission document.

City planner Ryan Shrimplin said officials have not made any final decisions about a future city hall.

“I don’t think it is that definite,” he said of the proposal to move city hall to the Common Pleas Courthouse.

The current city hall and one-time school is one of five structures added to this year’s list.

They include a Quonset hut at 1925 Good Hope St.; a brick building at 519 S. Pacific St. that has been condemned by the city and may be demolished; and a former “mom-and-pop” neighborhood store at 1007 S. Sprigg St. that is vacant and deteriorating.

The fifth structure, a brick building at 635 Good Hope St., was added to the endangered list in 2013, moved to the watch list in 2018 and then back to the endangered list this year.

It was returned to the endangered list after a developer’s plans fell through, and the building came under new ownership, officials said.

The others on the 2019 list: Broadway Theater, Fort D, Marquette School, and structures at 127 S. Lorimier St., 230 S. Middle St., 611 S. Sprigg St., 1305 William St., 831 North St., 531 N. Fountain St. and 207 N. Henderson Ave.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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