What To Do With the Vacant Municipal Courts Building?
The latest plan for the shuttered Municipal Courts building was to be a boutique hotel across the street from a renovated Kiel Opera house. However, two years ago today developer Don Breckenridge lost his battle with lung cancer, he was 73.
The Municipal Courts building was vacated when the federal courts moved to the new Thomas Eagleton Federal Courthouse. Â This allowed our municipal courts and related offices to move into the former digs of the federal courts, at Tucker and Market — two blocks East.
Just across the former 13th Street (now a parking lot for city hall) the building is ideal for city offices. Currently the city leases office space in at least two other buildings —- 1015 Locust and 15th and Olive. Traffic court is in space over at 15th and Olive.  The St. Louis Development Corporation and various departments such as the Planning & Urban Design Agency operate on the top two floors of the building at 1015 Locust — about 7 blocks away. Someone visiting city hall for a building permit might be told they need to talk to someone over at 1015 Locust, say relating to a historic district. I think Cultural Resources keeps someone over at City Hall even though their offices are on the 11th floor of 1015 Locust. Eventually you learn the lay of the land and where everyone is located but why not have complimentary departments closer together?
Above is the view of the Municipal Courts building from the Ray Leisure conference room on the 2nd floor of City Hall. As you can see, it is close! The parking lot below is the former 13th Street.
The very civic nature of the building, the proximity of it to the existing city hall, and the fact we have leased space spread out in other buildings are all reasons we need to seriously consider using this structure for city government.
Of course, we have no money for renovations. I don’t even know the minimum it needs to reopen for such purposes, certainly less than what it would need as a posh boutique hotel. I also don’t know how long our leases run on the other two buildings where we have space. ADA entrances and security becomes an issue with such an old building, as in city hall. The city hall entrance facing Market street is no longer open, only the East entrance facing Tucker and the south entrance facing the parking lot are open, with the exception of the ADA entrance into the basement. Thus someone going from one building to the next has to take the long way.
While the steep pitched roof of city hall eliminates the option of a green roof the Municipal Courts building is ideal for such a green living roof. Â A green roof often implies a larger renovation but not necessarily.
I like the notion of taking a look at all of our city departments and various agencies to see how best to use City Hall and the Municipal Courts building as complimentary facilities. Could we, at minimal cost, use this building?
Where is the Health Dept these days? I heard they moved from their elegant digs on Grand.
Federal departments move cities just like civilian companies. Instead of rehabbing the building for office space, a boutique hotel, or dare I say residential development; why not lure federal officials to take over as primary tenant. Instead of shuffling the deck, have our elected officials work towards bringing new federal office space to St. Louis.
There have to be a few departments of ____ with a leaky roof and would love to move to St. Louis (aka not Chicago or New York)
I always imagined that one day the City would understand the value of having a full scale municipal complex with all City offices on the same block. It is pretty easy to imagine how such a complex would work:
Current City Hall as the east wing
The Muni Courts Building as the west wing
A new four or 5 story office building and parking garage on the vacant half block that faces Clark that would connect to both the east and west wings along with providing ADA access.
A bond issue similar to the public safety bond that renovated the Civil Courts building and upgraded the St. Louis Fire Department in the mid to late nineties would be ideal.
Moving the City Courts from 15th and Olive (in leased space) to the beautiful Muny Court building only makes sense for the long term. The west side of the Muny could be made accessible with a ramp similar to the recently installed ramp at Soldier’s Memorial. A delivery dock could be made at one of the west entries to the existing interior parking areas.
Agreed, it would take a pot full of money to renovate the interior, but do a green renovation to set a standard, be a trend setter, think out of the box.
i seem to recall the 1015 locust bldg was acquired by the city in a real estate default…..so that may not be costing a whole lot.
While not what one would first think of as destination point, and certainly not unless one had specific civic business to complete, I believe Thor’s suggestion makes tremendous sense. Clearly, a boutique hotel would be almost entirely self-funded and free the city of the immeasurable renovation costs, however capturing this complex (both city hall and the municipal courts) and solidifying its presence as a civic core would help St. Louis have more credibility because our civic offices would have visible identity. Constructing a new office building to provide the necessary connection between these two historic structures is eminently sensible, and stong landscape design could even further connect the Federal Courts and Civil Courts buildings. A further connection to all of these civic facilities would bring some degree of place presence along the overly wide Market Street corridor, and perhaps even some well-designed pedestrian bridges would announce this array of historic buildings as a district of sorts. The new office building would provide the necessary parking in several garage deck levels open toward Clark Avenue, resultantly allowing the surface parking on the former 13th street to be the connective plaza similar to St. Louis County complex in Clayton. All of this provides a better defined edge for the open green across Market Street, and if our city intends to experience the type of resurgence that it hopes it’s projects like this that help give downtown credibility.
Although the Muni building’s language is that of a public civic building, there is no reason it would not function as a successful private redevelopment. It’s adjacency to City Hall, Scottrade, (future) Kiel and Union Station suggest a multi-use approach. The large, underutized west facade and landscape along 14th has ground floor entrances into the interior courtyards. Developing this edge to create a pedestrian connection to the cultural ammenities (as well as the transit) immediately adjacent would be a major (and much needed) benefit to the street. The upper floors are perfect for private office that conduct business regularly with the city. To take it a step further, a Norman Foster type element would add the visual clue that this a destination point.
Sometimes it costs the taxpayers more to own and maintain a civic building than it does to lease space. I believe the electrical wiring, for example, needs massive upgrades at the Muni Courts building because it was not built for computers. As for the SLDC/CDA/PDA complex, that’s probably a long-term lease, but it may be coming up within a couple years.
The Federal government is required to offer properties it is vacating to local governments and to homeless service organizations 1st. That’s how the City got the old Federal courthouse, since re-christened the Mel Carnahan Courthouse.
On the other side, the Federal government is not increasing the number of jobs in St. Louis City and County. Under BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure Commission), the Records Center Army employees are moving to Fort Knox, KY. And now it’s been announced that both the Page Ave facility in Overland and the Winnebago St facility in Marine Villa will be vacated, and presumably made available by GSA (General Services Administration) for sale to local governments in several years time. By 2009, their replacement facilities built w/ design-build contracts under long-term commercial leases will be completed; the main Records Center on Dunn Road near MO 367 in Spanish Lake, and the annex inside a quarry near Valmeyer, IL.
The L. Douglas Abram Federal Building, two blocks west of the Muni Courts, is being vacated by USDA. That building is/was also part of the Breckenridge development plan, but these federal property transfers can take years, so don’t hold your breath. Meanwhile, the Federal Center on Goodfellow is where most of those USDA offices are moving; it’s a massive GSA-managed complex, with plenty of empty space. Remember ATCOM? It moved to Huntsville AL during the last BRAC round, ’95-96 or so.
So even though Scott AFB is growing by leaps and bounds under BRAC, the Missouri side of the metro area actually loses jobs and, hence, reduces the need for Federal office space.
Anyway, I’d love to see the Muni Courts rehabbed, regardless of the ultimate user/owner. But there’s also quite a lot of deferred maintenance needs at City Hall!
Make one or more into a homeless shelter?
let’s just offer a big TIF and other incentives and see what the private market does with it. maybe downtown will get its own strip center …. bonus: lots of parking!
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