- April 23, 2024
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Flagler County is moving forward with plans to build a new southern library branch, even as the county is uncertain whether the state will come through with a $500,000 library grant.
The library building would be more than a library: It would also house the county’s human services and senior services staff, and would feature a congregate meal site and a conference space.
The overall cost of the building, including design, would be approximately $16 million. The library has approximately $400,000 set aside from passport services revenue. The county has $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act money that could be used for the library, and could also sell some of the 19-acre library branch property in Palm Coast to fund construction of the new library in Bunnell, library director Holly Albanese said: A potential buyer has expressed interest in the Palm Coast parcel, and the library there only takes up about 5 acres of the site.
Flagler County has ranked number one in the state for a $500,000 state library grant for six years in a row, including this one, but for the previous five years, the state then opted not to fund the grant program. The county won’t know until June or July whether it will do so this year.
The proposed new library building, on land the county bought on Commerce Parkway near the planned site of the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office headquarters, would be more than just a library: It would also house the county’s human services and senior services staff — making it eligible for grants for human services — and would offer a congregate meal site and conference space that the county could rent out.
“We just kind of took a step back and decided we need to find another way to incorporate more needs for the county,” Albanese told county commissioners at a Jan. 24 workshop. “We revised the scope of the project from just a library to a library, a health and human services department and a conference-center-slash-community-room.”
The building would be 32,000 square feet overall, with a 22,800 library portion — for comparison, the library branch in Palm Coast is approximately 30,000 square feet — plus a 4,500-square-foot community room, a 4,000-square-foot health and human services office, and a 1,637-square-foot covered porch.
Shifting senior services and the congregate meal site to the new library building would also save the county $50,000 a year in rent, Albanese said.
“You would have a congregate meal site that’s secure, you wouldn’t have to worry about changing location again, it would be in the same building, essentially, as the senior services department,” Albanese said.
The community room could be divided into two spaces that could be rented out simultaneously as conference rooms, she said, and the county could also use the building for an emergency shelter or as a sheltering location for employees.
A driveway would wrap around the human services area and could potentially be set up with a drive-thru service window, she said.
The library itself would have nine to 12 staff members, including the two who are assigned to the Bunnell library branch now. It would offer a recording and podcast room, study rooms, an innovation lab, 24 computer stations and a “micro-market” with prepackaged food and drinks, Albanese said.
If the county gets the state library grant money, it will be notified this summer and receive the money in December. The county would then put out a request for proposals for the construction. The library itself would likely not open before the summer or fall of 2024, Albanese said.
She asked for the commission’s consensus to move forward with the process.
“I think it’s either now, we go forward, or we give up the whole deal,” Commissioner David Sullivan said. “It’s one way or the other.”
Commissioner Andy Dance said he’d have liked to see the proposal in the context of the county’s strategic planning process to make sure that money set aside for the library wouldn’t be depleting money for other county needs, but added that he liked the idea of incorporating human services into the new library branch building.
“I think the flexibility is a pretty ingenious idea,” he said.
