CITY ASKED TO BACK SITE FOR NEW FED COURTHOUSE

The Cape Girardeau City Council should recommend a site for a new federal courthouse rather than stand on the sidelines, say proponents of the old St. Francis hospital site.

The council deadlocked earlier this week over whether to recommend the old hospital site to the General Services Administration.

Councilmen Melvin Gateley, Richard Eggimann and Jack Rickard voted to recommend the site. Mayor Al Spradling III and councilmen Tom Neumeyer and J.J. Williamson voted against it. Councilman Melvin Kasten was absent.

The council said it won't act until it holds a public hearing regarding possible courthouse sites. Even then, the council might recommend several sites.

Spradling doesn't believe the council should back a single site when there are a number of competing sites.

Spradling said the council doesn't control the selection process. "The GSA is making the decision and not the city," he said.

"I suspect whatever we say is probably not going to make any significant determination as to where it is going to go," Spradling said.

The GSA has all but rejected a two-block residential area immediately south of the existing Federal Building and expects to reassess other possible sites in downtown Cape.

The Haarig Area Development Association wants the council to recommend the old hospital site. The block is bounded by Good Hope on the north, Ellis on the east, Pacific on the west and Morgan Oak on the south.

The Haarig association is a not-for-profit group of Cape Girardeau businessmen in the Good Hope and Sprigg streets neighborhood. They want the government to buy and tear down the vacant, vandalized brick building and four houses in the block.

Haarig member Ted Coalter said the council should recommend a single site.

"Even if it is not our site, I think they should do what is best for the city," Coalter said.

"They were voted in to lead the city, not sit on the sidelines and watch the ballgame," he said.

Coalter and other members of the Haarig group believe the old hospital site makes the most sense even though federal officials have rejected the block.

The GSA says the site is outside the central downtown area and too far away from the Federal Building.

But Coalter said, "Sometimes the government can be embarrassed into doing the right thing."

He said a new courthouse could help rebuild southeast Cape Girardeau.

A new courthouse will cost an estimated $30 million, including about $3 million for the land and preliminary design work, said Jim Ogden of the GSA's regional office in Kansas City.

The government also plans to renovate the existing Federal Building. No plans or cost estimates have been developed for the renovation work, Ogden said. The GSA would have to obtain congressional approval for such work if it exceeds $1.8 million, Ogden said.

The GSA has looked at the 400 block of the north side of Broadway as a possible site for a new courthouse. That site has the backing of the Downtown Merchants Association.

The block is adjacent to the existing Federal Building. GSA officials have said they would like to build a courthouse within walking distance of the Federal Building.

But Dennis Meyer, Haarig president, said that location makes no sense.

"There is not one vacant building in the 400 block of Broadway. They are all in use," he said. "They aren't dilapidated. Why tear them down?"

Meyer and Coalter estimated the government could purchase the former hospital site for about $200,000, including the adjacent houses.

They contended it would cost much more to buy land along Broadway.

Ogden said the GSA has estimated costs for some of the sites. But he wouldn't disclose those estimates, which he said were based on county records and informal appraisals.

No cost estimate was made for the old St. Francis hospital site, he said.