The Orange County Board of Commissioners and the Carrboro Board of Aldermen each met on Tuesday – and both boards unanimously approved Development Agreements for a southern branch library in Carrboro.
The library will be located at 203 S. Greensboro St. next to Open Eye Cafe. (There’s currently an 88-space parking lot on the site, owned by the town.)
The new building would also be home to administrative office spaces for the Town.
The library is a $15 million project. Orange County Director of Asset Management Services Jeff Thompson says expenses for the 65,000-square-foot building (and possible on-site parking deck) will be divided between Orange County and the Town of Carrboro.
“There is a series of shared or proportional costs: we’re sharing site costs equally, we’re sharing things that are geometrically the same like the foundation in the roof plans equally, and other components like the elevator column for instance, things like that within the building will be shared equally,” said Thompson. “Outside of that, other than the up-fit costs, the things that are inside the space and the library, and the spaces of other dedicated spaces belonging to Carrboro – that would be shared proportionately.”
The Orange County Board previously appropriated about $1.2 million for the project. County commissioners estimate the site will cost them an additional $ 6,375,000 by 2020.
Carrboro has also appropriated adequate funds for the remainder of the estimated costs.
During the Orange County Board discussion about the library, County Manager Bonnie Hammersley addressed concerns about on-site parking.
“There will still be on-site parking available for library patrons, and I can say the town of Carrboro was very supportive of that and understood that. But I can also tell you, at this time, where the parking [deck] is going to be has not been decided,” said Hammersley.
Parking for library patrons will be free, and those spaces would be available to all residents after library hours.
At the Carrboro Board of Aldermen meeting, Town Assistant Attorney Robert Hornik said he estimates 55 or 60 parking spaces will be available on site – but that no exact numbers have been decided.
“We’ve tried to make it as flexible as we can and still have it be definite enough,” said Hornik.
According to Thompson, the Town and the County will begin designer evaluation and recommendations for the selection of the designer of the library in the next few weeks.
Construction is expected to begin by September 2018 with the library opening in the Fall of 2019.
Building a parking deck today is ridiculous. You may as well be installing hitching posts.
Individual car ownership has plateaued and will begin to decline over the next few years. If there is any parking for the library, it should be a flat, street level lot so that it can be easily converted to other uses as the need for car parking continues to drop.
Let me get this straight. Cars are going to be obsolete soon, but we still need a library that has a primary function as a place to go and borrow analog books?
They need to replace the parking prior to breaking ground. Carrboro and Chapel Hill are already woefully inadequate in the parking department. The area is growing and the need for car parking will do nothing but increase. I often avoid Carrboro and CH because I don’t want to deal with the parking. We live in a mostly suburban and rural area. Cars are still necessary and will continue to be.