Tenants are told, again, they must wait to move in

While plans are moving forward for the Army and Navy, tenants hoping to move into the new $50 million federal courthouse on Independence Street are being told again that they must wait, said Charlie Cook, spokesman for the General Services Administration in Kansas City, Mo.

The delay, which is at least the fourth time officials have postponed the projected date for the courthouse to be ready, is of uncertain duration, Cook said. In April, officials expected to begin moving court offices from Broadway to Independence Street beginning early next month. In January, the GSA estimated April would be the move-in time and early last year officials pegged Jan. 1 as the date. The original estimate for opening the courthouse, made when construction began in 2004, was missed because of the need to put additional foundation piers in place.

"Our project team has been meeting last week and this week trying to figure out some of the delays," Cook said. "But we don't expect the courthouse to open next month."

The first step for occupying the new courthouse will be the U.S. Marshals Service moving in and making security checks, Cook said. It is unlikely that the marshal service will be able to move into the building during August, he said.

While the prospective tenants of the new courthouse -- court clerks, congressional offices, the federal prosecutor's office and marshalls -- wait, county officials are also waiting to begin talking about taking over the existing courthouse. County officials are hoping to get the building at little or no cost to house county functions from the Common Pleas Courthouse and the nearby county government annex.

The details of any deal can only begin in earnest when the courthouse is declared surplus by the GSA, Cook said. "Typically on average it takes about 18 months to go through the process of declaring it excess to the government's needs," Cook said. "That timeline will be driven by the timeline of the new building."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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