More tenants move from Marquette Tower on Broadway

What was big news about a decade ago has become another almost-empty building on Broadway in downtown Cape Girardeau.

The Marquette Tower at 338 Broadway still sits in its restored glory, but fewer and fewer tenants are calling its offices home.

The Spanish-style hotel opened in 1928 and consists of two properties: Marquette Tower, the 59,000-square-foot former hotel along Broadway, and the 25,000-square-foot Marquette Centre at 221 N. Fountain St.

The city condemned the building in 2000 after it sat vacant for 19 years. Soon after, the Missouri Division of Facilities Management awarded a state contract for office space to Prost Builders of Jefferson City, Missouri, which purchased the nearly 75-year-old building for about $350,000 in 2002. A $6 million restoration project began on the property the following year.

Seventy-percent of the building's available space was leased by March 2004, and agencies began moving into it in the middle of that year, according to previous reporting.

A couple years later, in 2007, a few Marquette tenants began making plans to move.

Offices of the Workforce Investment Board, Missouri Career Center: Workforce Development Division and MERS/Goodwill considered relocating because their offices weren't customer friendly and because they lacked visibility, convenience and adequate parking, especially for the handicapped.

The Workforce Investment Board moved out of the Marquette Building and into its current location on South Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau in 2008, and MERS/Goodwill followed to the same location in 2010, said Janel Wilburn, resource specialist for MERS/Goodwill.

The Missouri Career Center: Workforce Development Division also moved from the Marquette to a location on North Kingshighway, said DeAnn Briggs, vice president of MERS/Goodwill.

A variety of factors went into MERS/Goodwill's decision to move, Briggs said, including lack of signage and accessibility and having related agencies and services on different floors.

"It's not the most convenient way to operate," she said.

One of the major perks of MERS/Goodwill's relocation is being under the same roof as its funding source.

"It really has been a huge advantage," she said.

Briggs said she does miss the view and amount of floor space at the Marquette, however.

The Marquette Tower was about 80 percent occupied at one time, estimated Tom Kelsey of Lorimont Place, the commercial real estate broker appointed by the property's current owner, G&S Holdings LLC, to handle its sales and leases.

Occupancy now is likely about 50 percent to 60 percent after some agencies chose to move out over the past three years, he said. At this time, the leased space is almost exclusively state agencies.

Meanwhile, another state agency has confirmed a future move away from the Marquette Tower.

Angie Fehr-Clark, assistant director for the Sikeston, Missouri, regional office of the Department of Mental Health, confirmed the department's satellite office in the Marquette Tower will be moving to a new location this summer. It will occupy space in the previous Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield building off Siemers Drive in Cape Girardeau.

The department's satellite office has been in the Marquette Tower for 10 years.

The move to a more centralized part of the city provides better access for clients, and all on one level, Fehr-Clark said.

It was announced in September that the Family Support Division office in Cape Girardeau, at 220 N. Fountain St. within the Marquette properties, was identified as a location for a Family Support Division processing center to enter data and process customer information. However, all customer service activities were to be moved to a new resource center at a different location, although it was not clear where. Updated information regarding the office's restructuring was not available Friday.

Though the Marquette Centre has been completely rehabbed aside from the interior, which was left alone for the projects of potential tenants, the center remains unoccupied.

"We have had several prospects for that building and continue to work with some prospects for the purchase of that building," Kelsey said.

Office tenants have needs that would be a better fit at other locations, he said, such as the west side of the city, which has a significant amount of office space and is more convenient and close to the interstate.

At the same time, the redevelopment of downtown provides unique advantages to those who choose to operate from the area, he said.

"There's a pretty significant amount of office space on the market in Cape Girardeau and Cape Girardeau area," Kelsey said. "There's several destinations for these business to pick from."

New Cape Girardeau City Councilman Joseph Uzoaru is in the midst of purchasing the former federal building at 339 Broadway, across the street from the Marquette properties.

Though it will create competition for other properties with available office space, use of the building can also be seen as a positive, Kelsey said.

"Anytime that you have a new office leasing situation come available, it competes with every other available office space center," he said, adding that it also will create awareness of the available properties downtown.

"I applaud him to take a building that's been vacant for several, several years, and make it available now where someone other than just the purchaser of the whole building can utilize it."

ashedd@semissourian.com

388-3632

Pertinent addresses:

338 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, MO

339 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, MO

221 N. Fountain St., Cape Girardeau, MO

220 N. Fountain St., Cape Girardeau, MO