St. Louis County Government is Getting Ready to Spend $200 Million for a $2 Million Fix / Project Cornerstone....

PROJECT CORNERSTONE - 2

They Haven't Sought Bids for Work and They Are Getting Ready to Spend $200 Million

Backstory:  In January 2016, the City of Clayton adopted the 2015 International Code that required 12 buildings in Clayton to upgrade fire suppression.  Four of the 12 are residential buildings, and the financially unencumbered St. Louis County Government Center @ 41 South Central Avenue is one of the eight commercial buildings.  Take a look:

Here is STL County response to the change, and its intention to comply (including the possibility of "mothballing" some of the floors, etc., as you will see), and some other communications between STL County and City of Clayton:

As set forth on a prior blog post (here's a link), local media have been reporting figures from $35-50 million to retrofit the building with sprinklers and to perform asbestos abatement.  It has also been reported up to $200 million for all needed repairs to the building.  However, no one has any backup for how they arrived at those totals.  The media just report what the county tells them, unfortunately, without asking for any proof of the numbers.  

The City of Clayton, via public records request, provided the following for permits issued to date for those eight commercial buildings that must be brought to code by 2028:

   It does not appear that all eight buildings have begun the retrofitting process, but this could provide some sort of clue as to what the costs may be.  Again, in the prior blog post, public records requests and responses were provided and show that STL County hasn't even sought bids or proposals for the work to be done, and that the $35-50 million or $200 million price tag is a bit of a fiction.

The Sevens Building is about 200,000 s.f., which is in same range as the county government building.  It appears the Sevens Building owners have spent about $87,000 per floor for the seven floors that have been completed, suggesting a total of around $2.1 million to retrofit the entire building.  

I'm not suggesting it would only cost $2.1 million to retrofit 41 South Central Avenue; however, there's a very big difference between that number and the $55 million we hear rotely reported.  The county has spent about $410,000 abating asbestos at 41 South Central over past few years (County cut off access to 2019 checkbook data, so hard to say if it's a higher number).  No matter:  Still having a very hard time getting to $55 million.

BTW, the latest development on the Project Cornerstone as far as County Council Agenda is concerned is the submission of a Resolution of Intent to reimburse the general fund for the $5.5 million they have spent so far on consultants EXCEPT THEY HAVE SPENT WAY MORE THAN THAT (suffer through the orders posted on prior blog post...it's more than $5.5 million -- more like $14-16 million)!  Take a look at the Resolution here:

If St. Louis County is broke, as we have been told repeatedly, why on earth would it be fiscally responsible to take out $200 million in loans to do a $2-5 million job?  Why?  

Why?

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Next Up:  Did you listen to the County of the Whole meeting for Project Cornerstone?  There's an outlandish idea to have a developer finance the project, which could mean citizens don't get to vote on the matter like we would if financing were via bond issue.  STL County is trying to spend $200 million without voter approval.  How about that?  Our voices have been silenced in county government previously when CARES $ was appropriated upon receipt instead of approved by council.  Fourth District citizens had their voices silenced when a charter amendment regarding swearing-in of new councilmembers was ill conceived, favoring the County Executive with votes that should have been nullified, resulting with Lisa Clancy holding over as chair inappropriately, costing taxpayers big money in legal fees.  It won't stop unless we let them know we are not going to take it!