Panel questions why city can't reuse Cedar Rapids Public Works Building

The city's Historic Preservation Commission wants to know if the Public Works Building is another Sinclair smokestack, Paramount Theatre or somewhere in-between.

City staff and consultants met Thursday night with the commission at the Public Works Building, 1201 Sixth St. SW, to discuss rehabilitation options for the flood-damaged site.

Sandi Fowler, assistant to the City Manager, said the City Council will vote in December on which option to pursue.

Project manager Ryan Companies of Cedar Rapids has estimated the cost of a new building at $29.9 million, compared to $31.5 million to renovate the existing 300,000-square-foot building.

“We're not satisfied with the amount of information we've been presented with,” commission Chairwoman Maura Pilcher said, noting that the commission was not brought in on the planning process as it had been for the Paramount and former federal courthouse, which serves as City Hall.

Like those buildings, the Public Works Building – the former Link-Belt Speeder Corp. - is considered historic.

Renovation of both the flood-damaged Paramount and courthouse are partially funded through historic tax credits, but tax credits were not mentioned for the Public Works Facility.

The entire site is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, but Pilcher said the commission is willing to forego the warehouses to preserve the administrative office building.

Members have cited the 1940s-era building as the only one in the Cedar Rapids area in the Bauhaus style, a form revered in Europe and rare in the United States.

The building will be demolished if the council votes to build new.

Commission members had advocated after the Floods of 2008 to save another industrial icon, the smokestack at the former Sinclair meatpacking plant, until they were presented with information that showed it would have been too expensive to preserve.

Pilcher said she wanted similar specifics on costs and details for the Public Works Building.

The building's second floor has housed Code Enforcement and other city offices since reopening after the flood.

David Zahradnik, vice president of Neumann Monson Architects, and Rich Leisy, senior project manager for Ryan Companies, noted that the building's layout is not conducive to current needs of city departments.

Bradley Fritz, the commission's vice chairman and an architect with OPN Architects of Cedar Rapids, countered by saying the building had stood the test of time and could be reconfigured.

“The building, at its roots, is floors and columns and walls,” he said. “The new building will be floors and columns and walls.”

The consultants also said the current building occasionally floods from sewers and does not offer the best site lay0ut for other buildings.

Fowler said the city is pursuing nuisance abatement on a neighboring site at 919 Sixth St. SW, but that land would not be used by the city for parking or other purposes.