Price tag of new courthouse will top $44 million

The federal government plans to spend over $44 million on actual construction of a new Cape Girardeau courthouse, or $285 a square foot.

The General Services Administration, the agency charged with maintaining and building federal buildings, says that's more per square foot than it cost to build the 28-story Eagleton Federal Courthouse that towers over the downtown St. Louis landscape.

The St. Louis courthouse, which opened nearly two years ago, cost $202 million to build or $195 a square foot.

Factor in design work and site acquisition expenses, and the GSA projects spending over $55 million on the new courthouse, or $357 a square foot.

The new courthouse would also be more costly per square foot than the estimated $324 figure for a planned federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which will be some 61,000 square feet larger than the Cape Girardeau building.

Built to last

Still, officials, including U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, say it's a small price to pay for a secure, safe courthouse that's designed to withstand earthquakes and terrorist attacks.

"We build courthouses to last," said Bond Faulwell, deputy regional administrator for the GSA in Kansas City, Mo. "The standard far exceeds what you could find in a plain vanilla office building."

The courthouse will be built by a contractor-architect team under a design-build method which could have the foundation being poured before all the design plans are finalized.

GSA officials say that's not how most courthouses have been built in the past. But they insist the design-build method isn't haphazard.

It allows the federal agency to get a single authorization from Congress rather than piecemeal funding. It also reduces disputes between architects and contractors that waste time and money, officials said.

The project initially was planned to be constructed the traditional way, with separate contracts for architectural and construction services. The GSA adopted the design-build concept for this project after scrapping initial design plans.

$2.5 million spent so far

The General Services Administration so far has spent $2.5 million on the project, including $1.8 million to buy and prepare a nearly four-acre site at Independence and Frederick streets for the new 155,000-square-foot building and over $700,00 for design work.

Congress is looking to authorize another $49.3 million in the fiscal 2003 budget for final design and construction of the building on a nearly four-acre lot at the corner of Independence and Frederick. That amount includes $44.4 million for actual construction, $3.5 million for management and inspection of the work and more than $1 million for additional design work on top of the $2.1 million already budgeted for design work.

House and Senate subcommittees have approved the spending plan, which has the backing of Emerson and Missouri's U.S. senators, Kit Bond and Jean Carnahan.

Final congressional action is still needed before the GSA can start building.

Construction could begin next year and be completed by February 2006 at the latest, officials said.

'The best estimate'

Emerson said the $49.3 million is based on GSA cost estimates. Past estimates for site acquisition have been high. Emerson said the actual cost of construction could be less than what Congress is budgeting.

The $1.8 million being spent on site acquisition work is less than half of the $3.8 million that Congress allocated several years ago for the job based on the GSA's own cost estimate.

"We go in with the best estimate," said Faulwell. "Nobody ever gets angry with you for spending less money."

The money comes from the GSA's building fund, which is supplied by rent paid by federal agencies. Faulwell said there's money in the fund to build the courthouse right now.

If the project comes in under budget, that will just leave more money in the fund for future federal building projects, he said.

The $1.8 million includes $341,093 -- over $87,000 an acre -- to buy 3.9 acres of land at the southeast corner of Independence and Frederick from five property owners.

Relocating the AmerenUE electric substation to a site a few blocks away at Ellis and Independence will cost approximately $1 million. The government also is spending $470,000 to raze a few small, vacant buildings on the largely empty site west of the Cape Girardeau City Hall.

But while coming in under budget for site acquisition, the government's still holding to a final price tag of well over $50 million.

Inflation and security

Federal officials defend their spending plans, saying high-priced security is vital at such public buildings in the aftermath of the 1994 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and last year's terrorist attacks on the East Coast.

They say inflation and sweeping security requirements to prevent homegrown and foreign terrorist attacks at such public buildings makes it more expensive to construct a new courthouse in Cape Girardeau than it did to erect the courthouse in St. Louis.

The Eagleton courthouse opened nearly two years ago, but construction began years earlier. Construction costs have jumped 26 percent over the past decade, Faulwell said.

As for the proposed Cedar Rapids courthouse, it won't be in an earthquake zone so it won't have to be built to the same seismic standards as the Cape Girardeau structure, officials say.

"It costs a whole lot more to building something that is earthquake proof," Emerson said.

Federal officials insist they aren't throwing away tax dollars.

"This is not something being put in for show," said Faulwell.

Cape Girardeau's new courthouse will be designed to stand even if a terrorist explosion collapsed one of the support columns. The windows will have blast-resistant glazing to help keep the glass from hurting people in the event of a bombing, officials said.

The courthouse will have numerous security cameras. There will be 24 secured parking spaces in the basement of the building. The building will be set back at least 50 feet from the streets and the same distance from the 120-space parking lot to protect it from car bombs.

The courthouse is expected to be two to three stories tall. It will include three courtrooms and three judges' chambers. It will have separate elevators for the public, prisoners and judges as a security precaution.

The new courthouse will replace the Federal Building on Broadway, which opened 34 years ago. The Federal Building will continue to be used for offices, but it has too little judicial space for the court's needs, officials said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123