Plan OK'd for renovated Common Pleas Courthouse to house Cape City Hall

The City of Cape Girardeau announced Friday afternoon a $12 million plan for Penzel Construction Co. Inc. and architecture firm TreanorHL to renovate the 165-year-old Common Pleas Courthouse and move City Hall back to its first home.

Cape Girardeau City Hall — currently in the building that was once Old Lorimier School — sits at 401 Independence St.

In August, voters approved a capital improvement sales tax allowing the city to spend $40 million over the next 15 years for a new city hall, an airport terminal and tower, as well as street repairs and upgrades to the water system.

But the sales tax will fund only part of the cost of the city hall project — $6 million. The remainder of the cost will come from “other sources,” according to previous reporting.

The project involves renovating the Common Pleas Courthouse and Annex and constructing an addition tying the two buildings together.

“The Common Pleas Courthouse is the cornerstone of downtown Cape Girardeau and its past is vital to the history and heritage of the community,” Cape Girardeau Mayor Bob Fox said in a news release Friday. “It is imperative we preserve and honor that history while also looking forward to the city’s future.”

The Common Pleas Courthouse will be reconditioned to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and will be a “secure facility,” the release stated.

City Hall customer service employees will be relocated to other public offices across the city in an effort to “free up space at Common Pleas,” and will provide customers with “more options citywide.”

“Our goal is to provide ‘wow’ customer service, and in order to do so, we must be responsive to changing expectations and to future generations,” city manager Scott Meyer said in the release.

The City of Cape Girardeau intends to find “a new owner and suitable alternative use” for the current City Hall. Construction at Common Pleas could begin as early as Summer 2020 and project completion is expected by September 2021, according to the city.

During the Civil War, the Common Pleas Courthouse served as a military headquarters, a prison for Confederate soldiers and Southern sympathizers and a hospital. In recent years, the building was used for numerous political, social and religious functions.