Subscriber exclusive: City waives storm-shelter building codes for school projects

Cape Girardeau officials scrapped a provision of the city's building code that would have required the local school district to incorporate costly "storm shelters" in planned additions to its schools as protection against tornadoes.

The provision also would have applied to the proposed indoor aquatic center, said city building and code enforcement manager Gary Hill. The city and the Cape Girardeau School District are partnering to build the facility next to Jefferson Elementary School.

The council voted Monday to repeal the provision. The council acted upon the recommendation of city staff and the city's board of appeals.

Cape Girardeau public schools superintendent Neil Glass said Wednesday the building code regulations would have made the building projects "cost prohibitive."

Glass and the school district's architect, Phillip Smith, raised the issue at a meeting of the city's appeals board last month.

Smith said that construction costs would be about 50% higher if the district had to comply with the storm-shelter regulations, Hill wrote in a report to the council.

That's because the structures would have to be built to withstand 250-mph winds, according to Hill. Conventional construction would allow such buildings to withstand 115-mph winds.

Glass said the regulatory issue surfaced during planning for a $2 million project to expand and renovate Alma Schrader Elementary School.

It is one of several major building projects in the school district that will be funded by a $12 million bond issue approved by voters in April.

The city's building-code requirement applied to schools with 50 or more students, 911 emergency centers, police and fire stations and ambulance-service facilities, Hill said.

It did not apply to Southeast Missouri State University. Hill said all buildings owned by the state and federal governments are exempt from all city building codes.

The city council adopted the current building codes in 2015, but delayed implementation of the storm-shelter requirements until July 2018, Hill said.

As a result, the city's newly constructed police and fire stations were not designed to withstand powerful, F-5 tornadoes, he said.

Former mayor Harry Rediger said he doesn't remember any discussion of storm-shelter regulations when the council adopted the 2015 version of the international building code.

The code, which is used by cities throughout the United States and in other countries, regulates construction of buildings with a focus on safety.

Hill wrote in his report to the council that the city's inspections department and appeals board concluded it is "unreasonable for a building code to create this unfunded mandate for critical emergency operations and educational facilities."

He added, "A better approach would be for community and private agencies to pool their efforts and resources to finance and construct storm shelters as a joint venture."

Communities in various parts of the nation have built "safe rooms" with federal funds to shelter the public from tornadoes.

The $5.6 million Jackson Civic Center, which opened in 2016, includes a safe room with 60 tons of structural steel and seismic bracing.

In addition to being a storm shelter, the room houses basketball and volleyball courts and a walking track.

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