County purchases 800 Broadway for use as Public Defender office

Marion County is the new owner of the building at 800 Broadway. The east side of the building will be renovated for use as the Missouri State Public Defender System’s 10th District office. Photo contributed by Larry Welch.

MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

A building constructed in 1916 for the Wilhelm-Strode dealership for the Overland Motor Co., and which most recently served as long-time home to The Golden Ruler Business Centre, will soon have a new life.

The Marion County Commission recently authorized the purchase of the two-story, brick structure located at 800 Broadway, across the street from the U.S. Federal Building, to be used as office space for the Missouri State Public Defender System’s 10th District office, which serves Marion, Ralls, Monroe, Shelby, Lewis and Clark counties.

Larry Welch, Marion County Eastern District commissioner, explained that the six counties served by this office are charged with providing space for the office. Because Marion County is the largest county, its appropriation is the highest.

“We’ve been paying rent for 18 years,” Welch said, for the office space at 201 N. Third Street, “and each year the rent costs rise.”

“This building, near the Court House, came available. We thought it would be a good investment for the county, a long-term payoff. Eventually,  the county won’t have to pay anybody” rent for the office space.

“The people who follow us (in county government) won’t have to worry about this on down the road.”

On Monday, March 10, an architect, Darin Prost, of Pepperidge, Stone and Bach, with offices in Hannibal, visited the site in order to take measurements for building modifications to suit the needs of the Public Defender’s office.

“We’ll do some work on it to meet their requirements, but other than that, not much” needs to be done, just “adding some walls, doing some framework, for office space and a conference room. It won’t take a whole lot of work.”

He said that Rex Hicks, the previous owner, took good care of the building, including investing in new windows for the building a few years ago.

The existing renter in the building is A&S Printing, which occupies 2,000 square feet of the building’s 10,000 square feet, and they plan to remain on the west side of the building. The public defenders will occupy the east side of the building.

The entire second floor, about 5,000 square feet of space, is available for future development.

One possibility for use of the second story, he said, is for storage. “A couple of years ago, (the county) was short on storage space, so we built a storage building in Palmyra,” which is almost full, Welch said.

“Now we have plenty of room for expansion.”

When it was new

The Quincy Daily Whig described the new building, which was then numbered 808 Broadway, in 1916: “This garage is the finest and largest in this section of the country, two stories in height, ninety foot front, and the second story is accessible on the side street without the use of an elevator. The first floor will be used for show rooms and offices, and the service and storage departments will occupy the second floor.”

In the 1950s the building served as the A&P Food Store, and in the 1990s, it housed the Rendlen, Rendlen, Redington and Bastian law firm.

This 1919 photo shows the building on the corner of Ninth and Broadway, Hannibal, when it was a dealership for Overland cars. The camera setting gives the illusion that the building is curved, but in fact it has a 90-foot square foot frontage on Broadway. Steve Chou photo.