Finding a New Home for the Silverdale Library Hasn't Been Easy

Before the Kitsap Regional Library board of directors decides whether to put a levy lid lift request on the November ballot, board members want to identify unknown costs associated with building new libraries in Kingston and Silverdale.

Additional expenses could play a part in determining if the tentative levy rate increase the board is considering should be adjusted. The board is looking at raising the existing levy rate of 32 cents per $1,000 of assessed value by 12.5 to 13 cents.

Through the increase the board is aiming to collect roughly $3.5 million a year more than what is currently collected. That revenue would be used to restore library hours of operation, add to the collection of books and other materials, and make technology enhancements at each branch.

A portion of the money would also be used on capital projects, including building new libraries in Silverdale and Kingston, and possibly Port Orchard eventually.

The board set aside money in its 2010 budget to hire an architecture and engineering firm to look at costs related to the Silverdale and Kingston sites. Steve Rice, partner of Bremerton’s Rice Fergus Miller Architecture and Planning, was awarded the $15,000 contract and tasked with four priorities.

Those include: conduct a site analysis to identify unforeseen obstacles that could complicate building the new facilities; generate a budget analysis to determine building costs independent of those calculated by Bob Goldstein, library district chief financial officer; analyze the proposed size and scope of the buildings to determine if they are large enough to accommodate programs and needs of each community; design drawings of how the facilities fit into the surrounding site plans.

Through his work Rice identified questions for each site, but the Silverdale campus had the most red flags, KRL spokesman Jeff Brody said.

The library board was told by the county that it could build its facility on the site without paying for the land. But costs nearing $1 million related to parking and traffic mitigation has prompted the board to question whether the campus is the right location for a new library.

After looking at the costs associated with building where the county proposed, Rice identified two alternative locations on the campus.

One option — to buy the Poplars apartments once tenants have moved into new senior housing on the campus — would still cost more money than originally budgeted.

The other option is still being explored. It proposes KRL enter into a long-term lease with a developer willing to build a library but also provide space for commercial business. Rice proposed the building go where the existing Silverdale Community Center now sits.

Accommodations for C-STOCK would need to be made if the center is replaced, to allow that group to continue performing until an arts center is built as a part of the larger campus plans, Brody said.

Because the new library facility — currently estimated at 17,500 square feet — would go in after the Haselwood Family YMCA is built, it would displace some of the YMCA’s surface parking. As a result KRL would be responsible for replacing those spaces, along with adding its own.

“The amount of parking we would have to replace, if the building goes in where they have it on the plans, would be an acre of land,” Brody said. “For us to provide an acre of parking, that’s a $500,000 proposition.”

The county identified a parking garage on its site plans for the campus to handle parking as the site is built out. The problem for KRL is that it can’t afford to build a garage on its own.

“The provision that says you’d be responsible for replacing the parking for the Y makes it impossible for anyone to go in there, especially us,” Brody said.

Calling the site plans for the overall campus design flexible, County Commissioner Josh Brown said the county was committed to finding a solution that would keep the library part of the campus plans.

“We want it to be the cornerstone of the community campus property,” he said.

KRL officials also learned the county plans to widen the intersection of NW Bucklin Hill Road and NW Randall Way to handle the projected increase in traffic. KRL would be asked to pay roughly $500,000 for that road improvement, Brody said.

“The reason this hasn’t come up before is because nobody else is in negotiations to come on to the site,” he said. “The county hasn’t had to deal with these questions yet.”

That’s why the library board of directors started asking questions before a decision was made on a levy lid lift rate, he said. In the coming weeks library officials will continue to meet with Brown and members of the Central Kitsap Community Council to discuss the details of the campus plan.

The board has until Aug. 10 to file the lid lift measure.

Bob Moyer, president of the community council, said the council and county share a desire to see the library on site.

“We wanted it all along and we still want it,” he said. “The council’s role in this process is to assure that as the campus is developed the needs that were identified by the community are kept in the forefront.”

© 2010 Kitsap Sun. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Discuss
  • Print

Related Topics

Comments » 20

nsultan (Inactive) writes:

It is interesting how voter approval is never needed for capital spending for things like the Norm Dicks government building, county courthouse offices, Kitsap Transit waterfront headquarters.

The government class eats first. Buildings used by the people are last in line.

indyexpat writes:

nsultan: Yep.

I love the library. Where I used to live I wasn't inside the town so I couldn't get a card. For $100 a year I could get a card but each family member was a separate $100 so getting books was a family effort. And with a book limit it became a negotiation.

I still paid for the library as part of my property taxes.

The KRL is great. My wife and I can get old DVDs -- just watched Advise and Consent, wonderful -- and have a week to watch, rewatch and discuss. Using an account I can reserve a book and get notified when it is available. I can't imagine not having it.

But I also don't envy the planners. With the transition to electronic media, downloadable books and all the other technology changes I can't imagine what they must be going thru.

MrsW writes:

nsultan, I never really thought of it that way before. How true it is!

jetvilleres writes:

I will vote down any levy that will increase my taxes AGAIN! Enough said.

kmu412 writes:

I will vote no for a levy until the library blocks access to pornography online.

I was treated like a book-burning extremist when I asked this question at the last levy: If the library doesn't put graphic pornography on its shelves in book forms, why should we pay tax dollars to provide pornography online?

Shouldn't those who want to look at porn do it at their own expense at a location not funded by tax dollars?

indyexpat writes:

jetvilleres: I'm sorry you feel that way. I think there are some things worth much more than you pay, others worth much less. To not discriminate between them I believe is a mistake.

kmu412: I think that's pretty much the risk of an open society. To do as you suggest we are again faced with the dilemma of deciding what is objectionable and what is not. Who gets to decide?

And what do we do about art that might appear objectionable, some Goyas and Botticellis come to mind. Just where do we draw the line?

The web is like a very sharp knife. Very useful but also very dangerous.

indyexpat writes:

kmu412: In thinking more about your comments I wondered what we should do about the absolutely obscene hate sites. I find them much more objectionable than a naked person.

kmu412 writes:

indexypat: my point remains that if the material is deemed too objectionable for the library to stock on the shelves, it should be too objectionable for access on the library internet service.

ladanyimr writes:

Censorship is always a slippery slope. What is objectionable to you and me may be quite different. I particularly don't like games featuring non-stop killing.

johnfarbarik8310#215093 writes:

Thank you Josh Brown for your commitment to keep the proposed library on the Silverdale Campus. The new library has always been planned for that location - where else would it go? The proposed library should be the anchor for the Silverdal Campus, not some afterthought.

But there are several things that I don't understand. The first is, what gives the YMCA precedence in location? The library, of course, will have to fund its own parking. But why would the county allocate an area planned for the future library as parking for the YMCA? I understand that the YMCA is to be funded by both YMCA and private funds but does private money/donations trump the will of the people, or should it? I think not.

The second question is, what is the status of funding for the proposed YMCA? Is it fully funded, and if so when is construction due to start?

The last question is, where can I view the current site plan and where can I read the latest Rice Fergus Miller study?

michael#212864 writes:

Sure, the commissioners all want a library on the community campus, then stick the library for so much "mitigation" that money is spent on parking spaces instead of the library. What the library district should do is take over one of the empty buildings in Silverdale such as the old Circuit City, which has ample parking and is already built. No planning department to put roadblocks in place at every turn. No "mitigation." Just a new library in an existing structure that is accessible. It would be far cheaper and easier than having to deal with a myriad of 'concerns' about a new library building. Silverdale definitely needs a larger library than the current 5,000 foot facility that has maybe a dozen parking spaces. Going the Circuit City route would be a smart use of taxpayer money compared to the alternative of the so-called Community Center.

indyexpat writes:

michael: Good idea. I heard somewhere of some thing called eminent domain or something like that. Might be better than a sitting tax break for some investment company that makes more by keeping it empty.

Having the library close to the Clear Creek trail might also be a plus for educational outings. Who knows, maybe we can build a trail walk in Silverdale that might be something like the river walk in San Antonio.

Course then we'd have to get the trail back from the squatters.

today24h writes:

Michael has a wonderful idea! Bonus: there's a bus route right there! Silverdale Library, use the only Circuit City building. It's a better location all around!

BryGrim (staff) writes:

in response to johnfarbarik8310#215093:

Thank you Josh Brown for your commitment to keep the proposed library on the Silverdale Campus. The new library has always been planned for that location - where else would it go? The proposed library should be the anchor for the Silverdal Campus, not some afterthought.

But there are several things that I don't understand. The first is, what gives the YMCA precedence in location? The library, of course, will have to fund its own parking. But why would the county allocate an area planned for the future library as parking for the YMCA? I understand that the YMCA is to be funded by both YMCA and private funds but does private money/donations trump the will of the people, or should it? I think not.

The second question is, what is the status of funding for the proposed YMCA? Is it fully funded, and if so when is construction due to start?

The last question is, where can I view the current site plan and where can I read the latest Rice Fergus Miller study?

John,

It is my understanding the YMCA is getting "precedence" as you put it, because it is the first part of the campus that is ready to be built. Construction will begin in another month, so everything that comes in after it will need to be planned around it.

The YMCA is paying to develop the pad, including their building and the surrounding surface parking — which because of the size of their building they are required by county code to build. I know the county is using grant money to help with the low impact development aspect of the parking lot, but I don't know the financial breakdown of who pays what amount as the parking is developed.

The latest information on the size of the building is that it is more than 85,000-square feet, which according to YMCA folks is a result of successful fund raising. They haven't listed how much money they've raised to-date, but we do know they have received more than $3.5 million in public donations b/c we've written about that.

If HUD approves the funding for the Mercy Housing senior living project, that could be the second building to go in on site. So they too will have to accommodate parking.

I don't know if KRL has put the Rice Fergus Miller study on its website, but I bet if you contacted them they would be able to answer your question.

-- Brynn
Reporter

rachrumm writes:

in response to jetvilleres:

I will vote down any levy that will increase my taxes AGAIN! Enough said.

Then I advise all that vote "no" to stop using all community services including libraries, traffic lights, sidewalks, parks, the list goes on. Please just stay home and leave us alone. Nothing is truely free and that is why I pay taxes and utilize where it is going.

rachrumm writes:

Then I advise all that vote "no" to stop using all community services including libraries, traffic lights, sidewalks, parks, the list goes on. Please just stay home and complain about something there. Nothing is truely free and that is why I pay taxes and utilize where it is going.

jetvilleres writes:

in response to rachrumm:

Then I advise all that vote "no" to stop using all community services including libraries, traffic lights, sidewalks, parks, the list goes on. Please just stay home and complain about something there. Nothing is truely free and that is why I pay taxes and utilize where it is going.

I have lived here 11 years. Not ONCE have I used the library. There are no sidewalks in my neighborhood, nor are there any parks. Traffic lights??? I really did not know that the library levy pays for that or any of those other items you mentioned. My point is...we all need to cut back due to this economy, but it's ok to have to pay more taxes. Go ahead, shell out more money if you have it. I certainly don't!

CentralMarketPizza writes:

in response to ladanyimr:

Censorship is always a slippery slope. What is objectionable to you and me may be quite different. I particularly don't like games featuring non-stop killing.

Blocking porn so that children won't have access to it or preventing perverts from spending their days looking at it at tax-payer expense is not 'censorship'. It is the decent and common sense thing to do. Porn is not literature, its not an opinion or information. It has no place in a public library.

STucker (Inactive) writes:

in response to nsultan:

It is interesting how voter approval is never needed for capital spending for things like the Norm Dicks government building, county courthouse offices, Kitsap Transit waterfront headquarters.

The government class eats first. Buildings used by the people are last in line.

Nsultan, are you saying that government buildings aren't "used by the people"? If there was no public to serve, there would be NO need for courthouses, permit offices, a police station, County Commission chambers, etc. The only purpose for these buildings is to be used by the people. Same with the library. On the other hand, who do you think runs the library? Yes, the government, so I'm really struggling to understand why you are fine with building a new library and not other buildings that also serve the people.

On the other hand, WASTEFUL spending on lavish headquarters and expensive real estate doesn't serve anyone well, and it also is inappropriate to increase spending in areas where service demand doesn't warrant it. Has anyone released studies in the past few years showing whether library use has actually increased, or decreased? I'm talking about the books and other media - NOT about the free Internet cafe which is what an increasingly large part of our libraries are getting turned into.

johnfarbarik8310#215093 writes:

Thank you Brynn.

Want to participate in the conversation? Become a subscriber today. Subscribers can read and comment on any story, anytime. Non-subscribers will only be able to view comments on select stories.

Features
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/may/02/new-costs-have-krl-evaluating-options-for-new/
www.kitsapsun.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2014-15
151367
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:MOCIBJ4LQYRUM53YODC6MKKUNFZSS6HW
<urn:uuid:051698cc-dafa-4a83-9b68-cf364e8d90ff>
2014-04-20T17:19:20Z
164.109.40.120
sha1:YDAE5PEHX433TB6RL2GWSBMUN7FDW6WV
<urn:uuid:a3f3536b-c661-46b6-9755-cd802d2e4779>
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/may/02/new-costs-have-krl-evaluating-options-for-new/
response
<urn:uuid:121484f7-3e72-4530-866e-7d3500790c92>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-147-4-33.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2014-15
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for April 2014
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf