City Councilman Uzoaru to buy old Cape federal courthouse on Broadway

New Cape Girardeau City Councilman Joseph Uzoaru has taken possession of the former federal building at 339 Broadway and plans to use the space as a multitenant office building. The first tenant signed its lease Wednesday and will move into the building in August, Uzoaru said Wednesday.

The purchase is under contract and will close Aug. 15, Uzoaru said.

The "fortress," as Thomas M. Meyer of Thomas Meyer Commercial Real Estate Co., the building's real estate broker, has called it is more than 40 years old with about 46,000 square feet of space and houses a large courtroom and a holding area for prisoners. The building was listed at $1 million and has had a number of inquiries, Meyer said in a previous Southeast Missourian interview.

Uzoaru said he began looking at the building in February.

"As I was looking at under-utlized buildings downtown, this one piqued my interest more than the others due to its excellent condition and large size," he said.

Uzoaru said he was surprised at what little renovation work needed to be done, and improvements should fall within the low hundreds of thousands of dollars, mainly because of the property's size.

The former federal building at 339 Broadway in Cape Girardeau, as seen Wednesday is now under contract with Cape Girardeau City Councilman Joseph Uzoaru. (Laura Simon)

Needed renovations include new carpeting, paint and minor roofing work.

Evidence that no expense was spared when the courthouse was built can be seen in the marble on the walls, HVAC system, removable partitions and plumbing, Uzoaru said.

"To guys like me that buy buildings, the thing is amazing. I mean it gets you excited," he said.

Although it was a courthouse, the structure also served as a federal administration building that housed multiple agencies, and it still is set up accordingly, Uzoaru said. He would like to keep the feel of the building the same and lease space to small and medium-sized private enterprises, such as architects, CPA firms or freelance graphic designers, he said.

"Ideally, the tenants would all complement each other in a perfect world," Uzoaru said. " ... However, I don't plan on restricting any of the tenants."

The building was previously owned by Majid Hemmasi of RDRH Holdings Inc. of Austin, Texas, who purchased it for $325,015 in the General Services Administration's second auction of the building in 2012. The GSA oversees the sale of all federally owned property, and rejected bids as high as $650,000 before improvements, selling it to Hemmasi in excess of the county's $300,000 bid. The county was given a chance to purchase it at retail, but passed on the $525,000 asking price, citing needed and costly improvements.

Hemmasi on Wednesday said he chose to accept the offer that was "substantially less than the listing price," but he is excited the building has a buyer.

Neither he nor Uzoaru would disclose the purchase price.

"If I would have invested that money in Texas, I would have made a lot more money," Hemmasi said of purchasing the building. "I just don't like vacant buildings."

If another opportunity to purchase property in Cape Girardeau should come about, Hemmasi said he would "jump on it," saying he loves the city and its university.

The building most recently was used during the shooting of the feature film "Gone Girl." Ben Affleck and Tyler Perry shot scenes in the building, which stood in for a police station in October during the filming of the 20th Century Fox and New Regency feature film, which is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Kansas City, Missouri, native Gillian Flynn.

Uzoaru was voted the new Ward 1 representative in April after John Voss surrendered his council seat. Uzoaru also is president of the Cape Area Landlord Association and runs Athena Property Group, which manages about 200 rental units in midtown Cape Girardeau.

"We would like to contribute to the vibrancy of downtown," Uzoaru said of his company's investment in the federal building. "We think that there is a growing interest in downtown, and it's going to take real estate developers deciding to commit capital to make that happen.

"If the quality real estate is there, the people will come. That's what we hope."

ashedd@semissourian.com

388-3632

Pertinent address:

339 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.