Statehouse gives city, county funds to go back home

CEDAR RAPIDS - The Iowa Statehouse has done its part to make sure the city of Cedar Rapids and Linn County have the money needed to move their governments back into permanent homes.

With dust still settling on Tuesday as the Iowa Legislature closed its 2010 session, the city of Cedar Rapids learned it will receive $8.6 million in state money to help renovate the Veterans Memorial Building and the former federal courthouse nearby while Linn County found out it will get $8.9 million to renovate and expand the Administrative Office Building.

“People will be happy on two fronts,” Mayor Ron Corbett said Tuesday afternoon. “They'll be happy we're moving back downtown and happy there will not be an extra burden on local property taxes.”

Linn County Supervisor Linda Langston said Tuesday that the county should be able to move forward and open bids on the Administrative Office Building project by June.

In the closing days of the legislature, both the city of Cedar Rapids and Linn County had expected they might get less than what they got.

In bringing the Veterans Memorial Building on May's Island back to life, the city will use about $12 million in disaster money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for renovations and perhaps another $12 million in FEMA funds to protect the building against future flooding. The state funding will provide $4.6 million to make changes in the building - adding a new stairway and some restrooms, for instance - not covered by FEMA funding.

The federal government already has done some $14 million in renovations to the former federal courthouse - the city is getting the building in a swap for property on which the new courthouse is going up - and the $4 million in state funds will allow the city to take additional steps to protect against future flooding as it readies to move some city offices into the building.

Linn County will combine $8.9 million in new state money with $2.2 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and roughly another million in various funds to complete the renovation and expansion of the Administrative Office Building, which the supervisors have wanted to do since last spring. Linn County property taxes won't have to pay for any of the work.

Architects' plans for the building at 930 First St. SW call for a new top floor for supervisor offices, for the Recorder's Office to move out of the basement and for the Treasurer's Office, which gets 70 percent of the county's foot traffic, to move to the ground floor.

Many of the city's offices have been working out of an AEGON USA building in a northeast Cedar Rapids office park since the June 2008 flood. In recent weeks, the City Council voted down a lingering idea to build a new city hall and, instead, decided to return to the two historic buildings downtown.

County offices have been at Westdale Mall. The mall site, which has its fans, would need to be completely rebuilt at prohibitive cost, an architect told the supervisors in September.

Both the city and county will go through an application process to secure the funds earmarked for them by the Iowa Legislature on Tuesday.