

Officials with Louisville Public Library plan to launch a fund-raising project next year to pay for construction of a new library.

Plans for a new library here hit a wall six years ago when voters turned down a funding request. Now library officials plan to approach the private sector in hopes of getting the project done.

Louisville Public Library Executive Director Michael Snyder first got the cooperation of city and school district officials.

Next, he will look to the Louisville area to pay for the bricks-and-mortar phase of building a facility downtown.

The appeal for assistance will come via fundraising drive, or what library officials refer to as a private capital campaign. The project, slated to begin in 2011, is expected to take a few years.

“We haven’t set the exact perimeters yet,” Snyder said. “We will develop an outline for our fundraising initiative. The (library) board is committed to raising this money without going to the citizens for a bond issue.”

PROPERTY SWAP

The proposed site is a vacant lot in the 300 block of E. Gorgas Street, where the Louisville Board of Education had a middle school until 2004.

Library officials will get the land as part of a three-way agreement involving City Council and the Board of Education.

The school district agreed to transfer the land to the library.

 In return, the school district obtains land in the 1000 block of S. Chapel Street, which the library owns and had plans to construct a new facility. Library officials abandoned plans to construct a facility on the 3.68-acre tract on S. Chapel Street after voters rejected a bond issue to finance the project.

City officials’ part of the deal involves relinquishing their claim to a parcel of land where the middle school sat. In return, city officials are getting another piece of the former middle school site.

Louisville city officials have “long-range plans; nothing immediate,” said City Manager E. Thomas Ault. “We will be putting up a fire station, we are hoping within five to seven years. We will use the time between now and then to set aside money to make it possible.”

School officials, on the other hand, are not planning to construct anything on the S. Chapel Street site. The land is near where the Board of Education constructed its new middle school at 1300 S. Chapel St., which opened in 2004.

“That land is contiguous to the property that we currently have,” Superintendent David Redd said. “If there is any need for any additional practice fields or ball fields in the future, that property would make sense.”

Meanwhile, library officials look to put into gear plans to vacate their current site at 700 Lincoln Ave. — a short distance north of downtown.

COMMUNITY CENTER

To conduct a fundraising drive, “we are going to need a lot of community support,” said Greg Anderson, vice president of the library trustee board. “We are going to have to go to some foundations. Service organizations and foundations will be critical.”

Plans are to build a community center along with a new library.

“The community center is something the community needs,” said Anderson, who also is senior director of planning and development for Oracle Corp.’s North American Technology unit. “We really don’t have a lot of meeting places. It is basically church basements right now. It would be a large facility that would offer space for public events.”

Library officials also plan to take ownership of the old post office in the 400 block of E. Main Street, which currently is an administration office for the Board of Education.

Preliminary plans show the new library would be 15,500 square feet. The current library has about 13,700 square feet. Lack of space has been a concern.

The community center, which would be connected to the new library, is projected to be 5,000 square feet.

“At some point we will hire an architect to design that whole complex,” Snyder said.

Architect Rodney Meadows prepared some preliminary drawings. Meadows, at the moment, does not know how much money would be needed.

“I haven’t run any numbers or anything,” Meadows said. “It is at the tip of the iceberg, just starting basically.”

To build what library officials desire would require “several millions more” than what they currently have, Snyder said.

“We have a small amount of money in the building fund,” Snyder said. “We have approximately $485,000. As you can see, we have a way to go. But at least we have seed money.”
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