Board aiming for 2012

By JOHN STANG/Daily Inter Lake

The target to open a new main Flathead County Library building is spring 2012 - assuming money can be raised and no glitches surface.

The Library Board unanimously adopted a timetable Thursday on finding a library site, raising money and building.

The timetable calls for the board to:

. Set the building advisory committee in motion in January.

. Expect the committee to have recommended sites by March.

. Expect the committee to have a site-acquisition plan by April.

. Have preliminary building plans, cost estimates and a money-raising plan ready by early fall 2009.

. Conduct a bond issue campaign or other money-raising campaigns for the next six months.

. Have final designs ready to put out for bids in the fall of 2010 - if the money is available.

. Begin 15 months of construction in late 2010 and finish it in early 2012.

. Open the new building to the public about three months after construction ends - likely in the spring of 2012.

The county library system has five branches, with the main library occupying 23,250 square feet of leased space in a 29,250-square-foot, 92-year-old former post office building on First Avenue East in Kalispell.

The Kalispell library has five parking spaces. The Library Board believes a roughly 55,000-square-foot building is needed with more meeting spaces, more room for books and at least 200 parking spaces.

A preliminary architectural study estimated that it would cost $16 million to $19 million for a new main library.

In the fall 2007, two sites became front-runners for a new library - unused land at Flathead Valley Community College and the empty 54,813-square-foot Tidyman's building.

But the previous Library Board rejected Tidyman's because it lacked money to renovate it and because of ground pollution concerns. A bitter internal dispute over the Tidyman's option helped lead to the previous board dissolving last summer.

The board's building advisory committee went into hibernation to await directions from a new board put together in the late summer.

Tidyman's since has gone out of contention as a library site. The building's owners, who also own Super 1 Foods, unveiled plans to put a grocery store there this spring.