Poplar Bluff is five years into a search for a permanent home for city offices. It took 12 years to agree on their last home.

Poplar Bluff has a long and complicated history when it comes to making decisions about the location of its city hall.

The topic was so divisive, Poplar Bluff’s city manager form of government was challenged the last time a permanent move was needed.

It took one temporary location and 12 years for officials to settle in 1989 at the former Lucy Lee Hospital building that made up the Second Street complex. It would become home to city hall, city court and the police department.

What to do with city offices has been a topic of discussion this time since at least late 2013, when then-city manager Doug Bagby warned council members they either needed to make expensive repairs to the building or make plans for a new building.

Bagby wrote in a city memo he believed the cost of repairs was too great. He estimated about 35,000 square feet would be needed for departments, at a price tag of $5 million to $7 million.

By September 2014, Bagby was gone and the city had hired Heath Kaplan as city manager. At that time, Kaplan wrote in a memo to council “the costs of bringing the building to code would outweigh the value of the building.”

He began preparing for a temporary move of city offices and the council started the search for an architect.

Dille & Traxel Architecture was brought on by the council to review site and building needs, work with a committee of city officials and residents, and bring a plan back for review.

In April 2015, the police department agreed to rent 1111 Poplar St., at a cost of $5,000 per month. The new location offered 8,000 square feet, with dispatch staff being located in a separate space on the campus of Three Rivers College.

In May 2015, architects said space needs were: police department, 32,000 square feet, Municipal Court, 10,000 square feet; and city hall, 14,800 square feet. If city court and the city council chambers shared space, this would reduce the space needs and cost for both, architects reported in city documents.

Dille & Traxel estimated project costs at: police department, $4-5.5 million; city hall, $3.8-$4.8 million; and city court, $500,000-$1.2 million. Costs would vary, architects said, based on whether the city purchased additional property, and what they chose to do with spaces that could be shared by city hall and city court.

Current city manager Mark Massingham wrote in a memo to the council on Aug. 1, 2016, that he recommended the “most cost effective solution for the construction of a new city hall/police station/municipal court and at the same time protect our citizens the best way we can.” He advocated for a downtown city complex along Second Street.

City council members decided at the same meeting they agreed with Massingham, and voted to keep the buildings downtown.

City hall and city court operations moved later in the fall of 2016 to a rented building at Vine and Fifth streets, while the city once again sought an architect. For $2,750 per month, they received a 5,880 square-foot space. Council chambers and city court now share a meeting room at the back of the Black River Coliseum, as part of the move.

After starting conversations again with Dille & Traxel, the council spent several months in 2017 attempting to purchase Northwest Medical Center.

This plan was abandoned in February 2018, after building inspections raised a number of concerns, including past flooding issues in the area planned for the police department.

City council members began an effort in December 2018 to purchase more property adjacent to the old city complex on Second Street, paying $165,000 for the lot at 115 W. Pine.

In May of this year, Navigate Building Solutions was hired as a consultant for the city hall project.

It has been more than a century since Poplar Bluff built a dedicated city complex.

Construction of the earliest permanent Poplar Bluff City Hall was completed in 1902 in the 300 block of South Broadway.

The two-story brick building held city offices, the police department and fire trucks on the first floor, with city council chambers and a firefighter dormitory on the second floor.

The location is now the site of the Poplar Bluff skate park.

By 1976, the building was in poor condition and city officials began to look for other alternatives, former officials have said. It relocated temporarily to another downtown location in 1982 at 211 S. Broadway, where it remained until moving to the Second Street complex.