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St. Louis County proposes property reshuffle
(by Tim Woodcock - June 25, 2008)
St. Louis County is refining a proposal to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for investments in the local infrastructure. The changes under consideration are complex, but at the top of the list is a massive reorganization of the county government buildings in downtown Clayton.
The county government is looking for a way to build a new family court and police crime lab; the plan would also consolidate various scattered offices into a new high-rise building opposite the main County Council building on South Central Avenue.
In March, County Executive Charlie Dooley formed the Capital Investment Initiative Blue Ribbon Commission to examine the options, and the group is due to report back to Dooley in early July.
The 15-member commission, which has been meeting every two weeks, consists of local politicians and business leaders. Some of the funding options under discussion, such as bond issues and new taxes, cannot move forward without voter approval, while others can be handled internally by using existing resources to leverage further loans.
At a meeting June 12, Sheryl Hodges, public works director, gave a presentation about the state of the county’s buildings, which she said have suffered from deferred maintenance over the years. About $50 million a year needs to be spent on the upkeep of the buildings; in recent years, about $14 million a year has been available, she said. While generally the buildings are clean and painted and have functional systems, there has been an unwillingness to pay for big-ticket items such as new roofs, furnaces and air-conditioning systems. Some buildings are beyond repair, with outmoded elevator systems and asbestos problems.
Reshuffle in downtown Clayton
The Family Court at Brentwood Boulevard and Forest Park Parkway is one of the worst buildings that the county owns, Hodges said, and it can be replaced at a cost of $71 million.
“We are out of space and it’s becoming increasingly hard to do our job,” said Judge Carolyn Whittington. She said some court employees have offices in converted cells, and the family waiting area is frequently overflowing. Since the court was built in the 1970s, many things about the juvenile justice system have changed, including the number and types of cases, the way cases are processed and tried, and the services offered to defendants, she said.
One possible strategy for solving the space crunch is to sell the current family-courts building and to demolish two government buildings at 121 and 111 South Meramec Ave., thus allowing for the creation of a new family-courts building in that location. The building would be connected to the main courthouse and the county jail.
This would create a need for new space for the various departments housed in 111 and 121 South Meramec Ave. Under the plan, they would move into a $200 million high-rise office tower to be created by Montgomery Development on the surface parking lot at the corner of Central and Carondelet avenues. The parking lot is currently shared by St. Louis County government and neighboring businesses.
The office tower could be up to 30 stories in height, making it one of the largest buildings in Clayton, and the county would take about one-tenth of the newly created office space.
The city of Clayton is aiming to confine the tallest buildings to the center of the business district, with building heights tapering off as they get closer to residential areas. The proposed plan would be consistent with that goal.
Another priority for the county is creating a new police crime lab.
The ambitious building project would be supported by issuance of general-obligation bonds. The bond money would not increase the existing property-tax rate in the county, said Skip Mange, former chair of the County Council and head of the Blue Ribbon Commission. Instead, existing bonds would be refinanced and their term extended farther into the future, he said.
Proposition M – again
The Blue Ribbon Commission has also been charged with looking at ways to raise funds for transportation and emergency-communication systems in the county.
Mange said the commission supports placing a sales-tax question on the November ballot as a strategy for helping transit agency Metro. “This is just a recommendation. It is the County Council and county executive who will make the ultimate decision,” Mange said.
The money raised by the proposal, known as Proposition M, would be split between Metro’s operating budget and a fund for a future MetroLink extension.
If Proposition M passes, the county would likely cut its subsidy to Metro by $5 million and instead use that money to improve the roads that it controls.
Emergency systems
The commission is also looking at a comprehensive update of the communication system used by first responders in St. Louis County. There have been problems in the past with car chases that go from one jurisdiction to, leaving the police officers involved unable to communicate with colleagues in neighboring cities.
“It is just no way to run a modern system,” said Tim Fischesser, head of the St. Louis Municipalities, which represents the individual cities within St. Louis County.
Also, in some parts of the county, the warning systems for tornadoes and other hazards are tied into the electrical system, and in the case of such events, “that’s the first thing to go,” Hodges said.
To fund the upgrades, the county is also proposing the introduction of a sales tax on purchases over $2,000 made by out-of-state customers, sometimes known as a use tax. The tax would be levied at 1.85 cents per dollar and can only be enacted by a countywide vote. Mange said he envisions this issue being voted on in spring 2009. This would ensure that it doesn’t interfere with Proposition M, which would be voted on this fall.
The use-tax proposal has been on the ballot twice previously and failed both times.
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