SUPPORTERS PETITION FOR OLD HOSPITAL AS COURTHOUSE SITE

A group of Cape Girardeau residents will petition the Cape Girardeau City Council to recommend the federal government build a new federal courthouse on the block of old St. Francis Hospital.

Supporters of the site expect to submit petitions bearing more than 1,000 signatures. The petitions will be presented at a public hearing at 6 tonight at City Hall.

The Haarig Area Development Association wants the government to tear down the vacant, vandalized hospital building at 825 Good Hope and five houses on the edge of the block.

The association's members own businesses in the Good Hope, Sprigg and Morgan Oak streets area.

Ted Coalter said the association hopes to get the public to turn out for the hearing.

"We are going to absolutely pack that place," he said. "Everyone feels pretty adamantly about this."

Coalter said his group must rely on public opinion to convince the General Services Administration to build a new federal courthouse in that block rather than along Broadway or some other site closer to the existing Federal Building.

"We knew from the very beginning that the only chance we had was to get enough public sentiment that it would turn the heads of the U.S. government," said Coalter.

The Downtown Merchants Association favors the north side of the 400 block of Broadway, a site that the GSA is considering.

But John Heuer, whose family has operated an implement company on Morgan Oak since the mid-1940s, said construction of a new courthouse on the old St. Francis block would revitalize southeast Cape.

"The City Council and everyone have been talking for years about cleaning up the south end of town," said Heuer. "Now we have a golden opportunity with the old St. Francis hospital up here."

Heuer helped circulate the petitions. He said more than 100 businesses have signed on in support of the old St. Francis site.

"Everyone I talked to said it makes the most sense to be there," he said.

Regardless of the outcome, Coalter said the lobbying effort has brought the neighborhood together and demonstrated that southeast Cape isn't dead.