Town considers Mall as permanent location for Library

I just received the following memo from the Town of Chapel Hill email list. It shares some info on a proposal to move the town library permanently to University Mall. You can find it here on the Town of Chapel Hill website too.

TO: Council
FROM: Mark Kleinschmidt, Mayor
SUBJECT: University Mall Library Proposal
DATE: November 22, 2010

During discussions regarding the temporary relocation of Chapel Hill library to University Mall, Madison-Marquette, the mall's owners, expressed to our staff their interest in exploring the possibility of permanently locating the library at the Mall. The proposal would be for a mall anchored at one end by A Southern Season, and at the other by the Chapel Hill Public Library, which they propose would occupy the current Dillard's Department Store space.

It appears to me that are several reasons to explore this offer. When our Town Manager approached me about the Madison-Marquette offer, I asked him to provide his best estimates on how this change in plans would affect the level of capital investment we were making in expanding the current library. Our staff roughly estimates that pursuing a University Mall location could save the Town between four and five million dollars. In addition to cost savings, this location would be easily accessible by transit, be located near affordable housing, and would help us achieve economic development goals by catalyzing commercial development in the rest of the center. In addition, building a new library on this site would allow us to move into a facility large enough to meet the programming needs of our library without having to incur transition costs that we had set aside for a temporary location, and free up Town owned space to meet the space needs we know exist for other departments.

I asked the Manager to set up a meeting with representatives of Madison-Marquette to meet with me, Mayor Pro Tem Jim Ward who also serves as the liaison to the Library Board of Trustees, and Councilmember Gene Pease who has served on the Library Building Committee and is our liaison to the Chapel Hill Public Library Foundation. At that meeting we asked several questions and confirmed that if the Town were to proceed the Town would own its space and have control over the design of the new facility. We asked that Madison-Marquette prepare an offer that we could present to the full Council and to the community.

After I was informed that the Town had received the attached materials, I arranged for the Mayor Pro Tem, Councilmember Pease and I to meet with representatives of the Library Board of Trustees, the Friends of the Chapel Hill Library and the Chapel Hill Public Library Foundation. That meeting was held this evening during which we shared the details outlined in this memorandum.

Attached are a copy of the Madison-Marquette Proposal and a copy of the preliminary estimates I asked Mr. Stancil to generate.

I am asking that this be added to our agenda for Monday night's meeting (11-22-10), so that we can provide direction to the staff as to the next steps. If we pause the current library expansion for a 60 day exploration period, Mr. Stancil assures me that he will be able to provide us with a more comprehensive assessment of this proposal.