A man who wants to save the Rock Island County courthouse says the Public Building Commission has only received one bid for demolition. Today, Architect Randall Brockway went to the bid opening, and Valley Construction is the only bidder at $400,000 for tearing down the courthouse. The company also bid nearly $400,000 for asbestos abatement and landscaping.
Meantime, Brockway says a banker from the Chicago area owns some of the bonds Rock Island County sold to pay for the annex to the justice center.
"The bondholder is Fred Shaw who says using the bond money to demolish the courthouse is illegal based on the way the bonds were sold. He says to do that, the PBC needs two-thirds or a supermajority of the bondholders."
Preservationists and others who want to save the courthouse continue to lobby members of the Rock Island County Board, asking them to reconsider their decision to demolish it. And Brockway says the group plans to meet with the county administrator on Thursday.
"Developers are coming with us. We'll have Joseph Lemon, Mike McCarty, and Mike Baxter from Muscatine. We'll talk about their proposals and the promise that they hold."
Earlier this year, the general contractor for the justice center annex estimated the value of the courthouse at more than $10 million. To renovate it as an office building would cost $18 million. But for Rock Island County to build a new office building would cost $29 million.
