Library District preparing to pick new site

Thu., March 23, 2006

By Peter Barnes peterb@spokesman.com

A new building to replace the library on Main Avenue would be built somewhere between Dartmouth and Sullivan roads within a half mile of Sprague, library district trustees decided Monday.

They also would like it to be as close as possible to a proposed Spokane Valley city center, although different timelines for the city and the Spokane County Library District projects might make that difficult.

“The current building is really in an ideal spot,” Library District Director Mike Wirt told the board.

The present site near Main and Pines was purchased in 1954 and has already been expanded once. Even if the old building is torn down, there still wouldn’t be room for a proposed building that would be twice the size of what’s there now.

Board members and district staff said a new location should be near Sprague because it’s at the center of the majority of the Valley’s population.

They’d also like to put it in or near a city center envisioned in the city’s Comprehensive Plan. But after the owners of the dilapidated U-City Mall indicated they weren’t interested in the project, the City Council elected to have a consultant find a new place for a Spokane Valley downtown as part of a larger study on redeveloping Sprague.

That study is scheduled to be completed at the end of the year. The library district wants to pick a site in the next six months to stay within the schedule, but they are still hopeful they will have some idea of where the city center will be before they make a decision.

“We don’t know if we should wait even if it is a good opportunity,” Wirt said.

Citing the crowded library in Spokane Valley, district officials said they hope to open a new building in 2010. The district would fund it the same way it raised money for the new Moran Prairie library, which sprang from what is called a library capital facility area.

As early as 2007, the district could propose ballot measures that would form a similar area for the Valley and a property tax levy of about 26 cents per $1,000 in assessed value to pay for the library.

Preliminary costs for the project are in the neighborhood of $22 million in 2009 dollars, Wirt said.

Construction costs are expected to increase about 7.5 percent each year, he said, which adds to the district’s desire to build a library soon.

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