Imagine you’re standing on the corner of Fairhope Avenue and Bancroft Street in downtown Fairhope. Now look to the northeast. If you imagine real hard you’ll see a massive construction project that takes up half the block – a really big two-story stucco and brick building. Got it? It’s right next door to the tiny Wolfe Writer’s Cottage – kinda like a whale swimming with a minnow.
This, largest-public-building-ever-put-in-the-city’s-downtown, is the new Fairhope Public Library. It was designed by the well-known and widely acclaimed local firm of Walcott Adams Verneuille Architects, in the Spanish Colonial style – a style popular in the early decades of the Twentieth Century when many Fairhope commercial buildings were built.
A hands-on designer and builder, Mac Walcott is overseeing the construction to ensure his vision for this place of knowledge and community activity is accurately translated into brick and mortar. He’s also working hard to ensure the Fairhope community is getting the best possible value for its investment. When completed this coming October, it will be a showcase and source of civic pride – as well as providing a modern, spacious facility that will meet the needs of the public library now and for many years into the future.
This project, from its inception, has followed the admonition of an earlier architect: “Make no small plans. They have no magic to stir humanity’s blood…Make big plans. Aim high in hope and work…” And herein lies the rub. Blood may be stirred and hopes may be high, but neither pays the bills.
Since the very beginning, there have been two factions fighting over the new library. Each finds very different answers to questions like: Do we need a new library; where (if the answer to the first is “Yes”) should it be located; How big should it be; How should it be furnished; How much should it cost; and finally, How are we going to pay for it?
Mayor Tim Kant and council member Mike Ford represent the faction agreeing a new library would be a good thing, but it should be modest, built away from the high-priced downtown real estate and designed to cost. They also believe that cost should be an amount the city can pay within current budget projections. Think of (engage your imagination again) a Chevy pickup with a bed full of books.
On the other side are council President Bob Gentle and pretty much the rest of the council. Their view can be summed up as, “We need a new library and what we build should be a downtown attraction and be designed to meet the library’s needs for many years.” Picking up the vehicular analogy, think top-of-the-line RV with well-stocked built-in bookcases. Nice, huh?
And well it should be for the price: $6,500,000. Of course that doesn’t cover a fully completed second floor or interior décor and furnishings. To secure a go-ahead for this “Luxury RV library,” the Library Board, headed by Dr. Hollis Wiseman, agreed to take charge of raising money to “finish and furnish” – to do stuff Fairhope would have been expected to do, but can’t. Between hurricanes and growth of the library in size and price, the city came up short.
This commitment by the board came at a critical time because the city had received a firm offer from the construction contractor. They had to sign and have work start immediately or face higher prices – possibly even having to go the bid process all over again. If the library were to start on schedule, everyone involved had to accept risk and plan on (or hope for) raising the necessary millions in time to pay the bills.
This did not set well with Mayor Kant’s team – it’s not how the city has done business in the past. But the groundswell of support for the project drowned out their objections and an agreement to float bridge loans to pay the bills if fund-raising wasn’t making it, was put in place.
At the first council meeting of April, the deferred dollar decisions couldn’t be put off any longer. The city had enough money authorized to make just one more installment payment. After that the mayor’s office would have to issue a “stop-work order,” unless additional funds were allocated. After visibly savoring the moment and even having a little “We told you so” exchange with Ford, Mayor Kant made a series of proposals that would grow the bridge loan from around $300,000 to $1.3 million.
This last dollar figure would provide for finishing the second floor and furnishing the whole building with shelves, tables, chairs, etc – all good things if you’re operating a library. He also made a suggestion that could provide the city with “cover” in exceeding the ceiling on spending, specifically to let the city finish off some of the second floor and use it for offices.
This turned out to be utterly without support from any quarter and discussion quickly moved on to the council’s real concerns: understanding how much of the $6.5 million project will be unfunded as of the next payment and what additional work will be needed to have a functioning library when it opens. A built-out second floor, the elevator to provide full access to it and all of the interior furnishings still appear to be in limbo – BUT the whole thing has been punted into the next council meeting, just two days before April 30, when the funding is projected to run out.
Get the hot scoop on that meeting in (almost) real-time at www.lagniappemobile.com.
Web addendum
With Council member Mike Ford the one holdout, the Fairhope city council voted to provide a bridge loan to complete the new library. Ford, noting that he is of the old school, said that you don’t spend money you don’t have.
Although this is a refreshingly conservative view at a time when debit is piling up at record rates, he wasn’t exactly accurate – he wasn’t not spending money the city didn’t have. He was not spending library board future funds.
The bridge loan committed the library board, not the city, to pay back interest and principal. In co-signing the note, the city effectively was taking a little risk to get an $8 million dollar facility for $3 million – the amount that the city said they could afford to pay for a new library, regardless of it ultimate cost.
A few city council meetings ago the council voted to cap a bridge loan at $400,000. Now in a moment of generosity (with other people’s money) they raised this to $2,000,000.
Although some of the details are less than perfect, this is basically a good thing. It had become obvious that some bad decisions were literally about to be cast in concrete (or at least drywall and plumbing pipe) with respect to finishing and furnishing the new library. The opening would have been delayed and use of the facility limited had money not been available now.
You can get all the details on this in the original, hardcopy Lagniappe column on the newsstands the last week in April.
So things are back on track with the opening of the new building confirmed for fall – assuming reasonable luck with weather and subcontractors.
And when it opens it will be a fully furnished and functional facility for Fairhope
Contact Pete Gleszer at jubilee@lagniappemobile.com.
Archives
Jubilee
