St. Louis To Consolidate Some Offices at Former Federal Office Building

Last Friday I posted that I wanted to see the city consolidate various offices into the vacated Municipal Courts building next to city hall. Monday I get a call from John Farrell, Public Information Officer for Comptroller Darlene Green, asking if I had time for a quick meeting. I met with Farrell and James Garavaglia, the Asset Manager in Green’s office.

While they all like the Municipal Courts building they say the cost of the necessary repairs are beyond the city’s budget constraints. Unlike city hall, the Municipal Courts building has not had the incremental upgrades to the electrical service and other systems. Garavaglia said in the last year the building was in operation they had fans blowing on the electrical panels to cool them down.

So when the federal courts moved to their new courthouse the shift began — the city bought the former federal courts building, leaving the old Municipal Courts building vacant. But, at that time, the talk was of a renewed Kiel Opera House with the Municipal Courts serving as a hotel and restaurant space to the east and the Abram federal building becoming a parking garage.

Above: The Abram building as seen from where 16th street used to be, now poorly maintained “open space.”

A couple of issues have come up since then. One, developer Breckenridge died a year ago and it turns out the Abram building is not well suited for a parking garage. Plan B? Consolidate offices from other buildings including the traffic/housing courts on Olive at 15th and the Health Department from North Grand.

Not as ideal as the Municipal Courts — an attractive building adjacent to City Hall. Still, having offices in the Abram is better than using is strictly for daily car storage — we have enough garages already. Sadly, it is really a tragic building from an urban perspective.

It occupies an entire city block yet has only one public entrance — which is set back from the street atop a platform accessed only from opposite ends. The building overhang is suitable space for smokers to stay out of the rain but little else.

Above we can see the little bit of 15th street before it is cut off for the Scottrade Center, with the Abram on the right and the long-closed Kiel Opera House on the left.

From the above vantage point we can see the rest of the field — in the foreground is the vacant Kiel, then the vacant Municipal Courts, the tall building is the new federal courthouse, the dark lower building with the red roof being city hall and behind it, the old federal courthouse now used for state court as well as some city offices.

So where does leave the Municipal Courts building? In July Jake Wagman of the Post-Dispatch did a story on the city’s hope to sell the building. Following that story, says Farrell and Garavaglia was interest from local and out of town developers. The developers that expressed an interest were given an RFP. Garavaglia expects responses early in January. Working with the Slay administration, Comptroller Green hopes to be able to select one of the proposals to sell the building.

At issue for any developer is figuring out ADA access. Such access is currently through a back entrance as the front steps are much to great for a reasonable ramp. Once inside I’m told the original (and historic bathrooms) have steps up into them. Other areas of the building include a number of steps as well.

The eventual purchaser will also get basically the land the building sits on. The parking to the south is a city owned lot. However, I’m told the Treasurer’s Office which manages parking for the city, is open to working with a developer on the construction of a shared new adjacent garage.

Funny how a city that has seen its rebirth based on the renovation of old buildings cannot manage to renovate one of it’s own. A civic gem goes private while we as a city get the abysmal Abram.