PHOTOS: Council members tour old federal courthouse; some ready to move in

Council member Chuck Wieneke seemingly has been a bit of a fence-sitter in the debate over building a new $38-million to $50-million city hall or returning city government to historic buildings downtown.

“Very bluntly, we're coming back downtown (to existing buildings). That's what I'm guessing,” Wieneke said Wednesday afternoon, 10 minutes into a tour of the old, empty federal courthouse, which sits a half block from the city's flood-damaged May's Island City Hall and which the city can take ownership of now at zero purchase cost.

Later, Wieneke said, he himself, favors building a new city hall.

Also on the tour Wednesday were the three new members on the nine-member council, Mayor Ron Corbett and at-large council members Don Karr and Chuck Swore, all staunch opponents of building a new city hall and advocates for returning city government to May's Island and, perhaps, using the old federal courthouse for city government, too.

After the 40-minute tour, Karr, Swore and council member Monica Vernon were nearly giddy at the prospects of using the federal courthouse for city government.

“This building is just being wasted,” Swore said at one point. “I'm at a loss why we're not back in here.”

Karr said some on the past City Council had talked about how a new city hall would be built to last 50 to 75 years. Karr said the old federal courthouse would last 500 years.

“This building is historically significant to the community,” he said. “Imagine how would you feel if you were a citizen walking in this hallway? It feels like government. It looks like government.”

Karr, a plumber, and Swore, an electrician, were salivating at the new heating, air-conditioning and electrical systems replaced by the federal General Services Administration since the June 2008 flood.

“It's state of the art,” Karr declared. “It's beautiful,” Swore said.

Mayor Corbett was a little more measured in his response, saying that the City Council needed to assess space needs and operating costs both here and the at May's Island's City Hall, which is known as the Veterans Memorial Building.

“But we have a tremendous asset here,” the mayor said. “The building is in great shape, and it offers a lot of opportunity.”

Over many months of study and public input about the city's flood-damaged public buildings, the view that emerged from City Hall and from its consultant was that the old federal courthouse had limited value for city government.

Both Wieneke and Karr noted Wednesday that one concern had been that the city would have to pay if the heating, mechanical and electrical systems, which were renovated in place in the building's basement, flooded again. Not true, they said they now have learned. The federal General Services Administration, which has owned the building, paid the renovation costs, so the Federal Emergency Management Agency has not yet had to pay for flood damage on the building and so would if it flooded under city ownership.

The thought, too, has been that the giant courtroom on the building's top floor was a liability because it has historic status and can't be altered.

Karr, Swore, Vernon and council member Justin Shields all said they could easily envision the room becoming the new home for City Council meetings.

Shields has been the only council member over many months who said publicly he favored building a new city hall.

After the tour on Wednesday, he said he was cautioning some of his colleagues to slow down and look at options. At the same time, Shields said he was surprised to see how clean the courthouse building is and how much room it has. He said he could envision the building working with the Veterans Memorial Building as a city government “complex.”

“There's a lot of potential here,” he said.

Standing in the building's big courtroom, Vernon said holding council meetings in the room “would be a great testament to city government and a great testament to citizen participation.”

“We need to get back in touch with the core of our city,” she said. “We've encouraged others to return to downtown. We've got to walk the talk.”

The city can take ownership of the building at any time. It is getting the building in exchange for donating land on which the new federal courthouse is now being built.

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