Tri Star Deal Dead, Ellisville Ponders City Hall Needs

Saturday, the city of Ellisville will hold the last of three town hall meetings scheduled to let residents chime in on how to move forward to address space needs at city facilities.

The final session is scheduled for 9 a.m. at the Parks Administration Building at Bluebird Park.

The meetings were first thought of as the city considered a $5.5 million purchase of the Tri-Star car dealership as a future city hall. Residents largely panned the idea, citing the expense, location and timing among other reasons.

Council members recently voted against spending money to assess the site or the existing city hall property and on Tuesday, the city announced it was pulling out of negotiations to buy the Tri-Star property.

One resident said Thursday that until the city starts seeing new business coming in to improve city revenues, "we'll spend no dime before it's time," encouraging city leaders to tighten their belts.

Councilwoman Linda Reel said she wants to wait until there's some certainty to the situation surrounding Walmart before deciding what to do. The project, which would help city tax coffers, would also have the potential to increase the value of the existing city hall property with a traffic light.

City Manager Kevin Bookout said his staff could continue to make things work at the existing site but noted that addressing the city hall is the last of a series of capital improvement projects dating back over the last twenty years.

"City Hall needs to be improved, there's no two ways about it,"City Councilman Mick Cahill told the audience of about 20 people at the second meeting Thursday. "It just can't keep doing what it does sufficiently," he said.

Dan Duffy, a resident and a member of the Planning and Zoning Commission, voiced interest in rebuilding on two stories at the current address, while negotiating to add space for parking, which together he thought would be cheaper than building elsewhere. Duffy noted that while city officials want to keep the proximity between City Hall and the Police department, there was no need to "sack" the police department because administrative space might be lacking. 

Tom DeBold said he was against spending money on assessing the current site if the city already knows there isn't enough room to rebuild there, and that that money would be better spent on immediate short term needs at the existing site.

A panel of citizens, city council members and other will work with the City Engineer to evaluate options going forward. Bookout indicated calls have already gone out to investigate the possibility of leasing space, although the preference would be for the city to own property.

You tell us: Would you rebuild at the current site, move, or do nothing at all?