U.S. COURTHOUSE SITE MIGHT BE BOUGHT THIS YEAR

The federal government plans to buy property by Sept. 30 for construction of a new courthouse in Cape Girardeau.

The government wants to buy the nearly six-acre Happy Hollow site at Independence and Frederick, west of Cape Girardeau City Hall.

"The objective is to have the property acquired in this fiscal year," said Jim Ogden of the General Services Administration's regional office in Kansas City. The federal fiscal year ends at the end of September.

As director of portfolio management, Ogden directs efforts to buy property for construction of federal buildings.

Before the federal government can buy property for such a project, it must hold a public hearing. Ogden said the GSA hopes to hold a public hearing in Cape Girardeau in March or April.

"I am optimistic that we will have it this spring," he said.

Earlier this week, two officials from the GSA's regional office and three from the agency's Washington office visited the site. The visit was part of continued planning for the project, he said.

The government says it has outgrown the Federal Building on Broadway. It houses federal offices and federal court operations.

The government wants to build a structure to house federal courts and related agencies.

The project has been in the planning stages for years. In 1994, Congress allocated $3.8 million to buy land for a new courthouse.

Since then, the GSA has looked at a number of possible sites for a courthouse. The agency abandoned the idea of constructing a new courthouse in a residential area just to the south of the Federal Building because of strong neighborhood opposition.

The Happy Hollow site includes an area with gasoline-contaminated soil. Gasoline leaked into the ground from underground tanks at the site of a former service station at 16 S. Frederick.

Cleanup could cost an estimated $250,000. Ogden said this week that cleanup work has yet to begin.

The government will pay to have AmerenUE's substation just west of City Hall relocated as part of the project.

The GSA had said it wouldn't proceed with the courthouse project without assurances of construction funding.

Congress last year approved about $2 million in design and planning money for the new courthouse.

"As soon as we got the design money, that pretty well committed the government to doing that project," Ogden said.

If all goes well, Congress could appropriate construction funding in fiscal 2001, he said. Construction could take two years with the building ready for occupancy in fiscal 2003.

The entire courthouse project could cost $40 million, with construction of the building alone expected to cost some $30 million.

Initial plans called for construction of a five-story, 145,000-square-foot courthouse. But the size of the building won't be known until design work is done.