NEW FEDERAL COURTHOUSE MEETS SNAG

The General Services Administration canceled its contract with a Chicago architectural firm for design of a new federal courthouse in Cape Girardeau after the Office of Management and Budget in Washington concluded the project should be scaled back to one courtroom.

Congress could ignore the OMB and authorize construction of a 150,000-square-foot courthouse with three courtrooms and four judges' offices as is wanted by judges in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri.

But Dennis Miller, GSA project manager in Fort Worth, Texas, said that won't happen until this fall at the earliest when Congress approves the fiscal 2002 budget.

Meanwhile, architects can't design the building without knowing the overall square footage, he said. For that reason, he said, the GSA recently canceled the architectural contract with Ross Barney and Jankowski of Chicago after having paid the firm nearly half-a-million dollars for conceptual design work over the past 12 months.

The architectural firm initially proposed a courthouse with an atrium and skylight that would be left open in the summer. The architects didn't want to air condition the atrium, Miller said.

U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Cape Girardeau, shot down the idea, saying she wouldn't vote to spend money without the air conditioning. "That is just the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard," said Emerson, reached at her Washington office on Thursday.

Once matters have been resolved, Miller said, the GSA could rehire the Chicago architects or enter into a contract with a different firm.

Emerson suggested the GSA use the blueprints of other similarly sized courthouses, eliminating the need for hiring another architect.

The OMB, which helps prepare the president's budget proposals, says only one courtroom is needed in the new courthouse, which is to be built on a nearly four-acre site at Frederick and Independence west of Cape Girardeau City Hall.

That has angered Emerson and left federal judges and the clerk in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Missouri in a state of disbelief.

"I am certainly not going to waste taxpayer dollars on a courthouse that isn't larger than we already have," said Emerson, who wants to scuttle OMB's budget proposal in Congress.

Judges want more

Jim Woodward, clerk of the U.S. District Court in St. Louis, said Thursday it would be a waste of taxpayers' money to build a courthouse with a single courtroom. A 150,000-square-foot courthouse was proposed because the 33-year-old Federal Building at 339 Broadway was inadequate to handle the growing caseload, he said.

The existing building, which houses other federal offices, has one large courtroom and a small courtroom. That's not enough with the growing number of cases being heard in Cape Girardeau, Woodward said.

Last year, about 80 new criminal cases and 200 new civil cases were filed in federal court in Cape Girardeau, he said. Those figures don't include pending cases that were already before the judges.

The new courthouse would have more than courtrooms and judges' offices. It also would have offices for federal prosecutors, public defenders and the U.S. Marshal's Service. But it's the courtroom space that is drawing fire from the OMB.

Guidelines questioned

The OMB, he said, wants a smaller courthouse based on federal guidelines of one courtroom for each resident district judge. But Woodward said no federal district judges are based in Cape Girardeau. They are based in St. Louis. The only judge based in Cape Girardeau is Lewis Blanton, who is a U.S. magistrate.

The guidelines, he said, apply to the number of courtrooms at the principal courthouse in the district. It doesn't apply to division courthouses like the one proposed in Cape Girardeau, Woodward said.

"The formula they keep touting would say you get no courtrooms because you do not have a resident district judge. That is how unrealistic and impractical this formula is," said Woodward.

Even if Congress favors a larger courthouse, lawmakers likely won't approve construction money until fall 2002 since it ranks behind a number of other courthouse projects nationwide, Woodward said.

The GSA's Miller says his agency is still doing some work on the project.

The government has bought three of the six parcels of land needed for the project and is close to reaching agreement with a fourth property owner, AmerenUE.