5 hours Ago By By Kelsey Landis St. Louis Post-Dispatch
CLAYTON — The St. Louis County Council on Tuesday revived talks about relocating county government headquarters as a deadline to vacate its current building approaches. There's no time to renovate or build new before a 2028 deadline to install fire sprinklers compliant with Clayton city code, County Executive Sam Page has said.
The only option left is to lease a temporary space for hundreds of employees and the public to use while the council decides on a permanent solution. "We have to be out of this building in three years," Page said in an interview in January. "There's no timeline where we could build new space in less than three years.
So we'll be leasing somewhere." And a power problem complicates the issue. A power plant sits beneath the 54-year-old Lawrence K.
Roos building on South Central Avenue. The plant powers the nearby county jail, courthouse and police headquarters. Heating and cooling systems for the campus are also located below the Roos building, and an emergency communications antenna is on top.
The county won't be able to access those systems if the Roos building isn't up to code, said transportation and public works Director Stephanie Leon Streeter. The county will have to build a new power plant, and replace the antenna, before the end of 2027. "We are at a crossroads," Leon Streeter said.
Republican Councilman Dennis Hancock, of Fenton, pushed back on the need for major renovations or moving. He believes the county could install fire sprinklers without costly asbestos abatement or work on deferred maintenance. "We act like this is some kind of major ordeal," Hancock said.
"It's not." County public works staffers have said the building is crumbling . The 10-story high-rise doesn't have fire sprinklers throughout, as required by Clayton code.
The council discussed possible plans to renovate or replace the building last spring, but the talks fell apart amid political infighting. Options ranged from $276 million for renovations, including asbestos abatement, at the existing building to $612 million for a new county building, a new mid-county satellite office and a renovated police headquarters in downtown Clayton. The county would need voters to approve a property tax increase to pay for the project.
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