Chapel Hill Town Council shelves library relocation

Chapel Hill residents will continue to enjoy books surrounded by the trees of Pritchard Park after the Chapel Hill Town Council unanimously decided not to move the town’s only library Monday night.

Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt addressed the attendants of a town council meeting prior to its start, explaining the development of the library discussion.

“As clear as it was to me then that people wanted this conversation, it is just as clear to me today that people are done with that conversation,” Kleinschmidt said.

The decision was reached after an open discussion between the community and the council, he said, and the town will return its focus to the renovation of the current space and solving traffic and access issues.

The proposed move would have relocated the Chapel Hill Public Library to the space in University Mall currently occupied by Dillard’s.

The relocation would have saved the town about $1.5 million, compared to an initial estimate of $3 million to $4 million in savings, said Town Manager Roger Stancil.

Stancil presented the council a report showing an apples-to-apples comparison of the two library proposals, with the risks of moving to University Mall laid out.

Unlike the design for the expansion project at the 100 Library Drive location, which is 95 percent complete, the mall project design had not been started, and the full cost would have been hard to predict.

“As we begin to design, that number is in jeopardy,” Stancil said.

If moved, the library would have had to take on the annual costs of flood insurance, common area maintenance fees and the loss of revenue taxes received from the Dillard’s space.

These expenses would total an annual cost of about $182,000, according to the report.

Many Chapel Hill residents expressed their concerns about a move to University Mall during the meeting, and supporters of expanding the current location attended wearing pink heart-shaped stickers that said, “We love our library in Pritchard Park.”

“Who knew that when we started this it would end in a parade of thank you’s,” said Aaron Nelson, president and CEO of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce.

Residents were not only concerned about the cost but also the principle of moving the library to a mall, said Melissa Cain, executive director of the Chapel Hill Public Library Foundation.

She said the town considered the cost concerns and the more sentimental concerns in its research after the permanent relocation was initially proposed by mall owner Madison Marquette in November.

“There just wasn’t a fit,” Cain said. “And just like a house of cards it started falling apart.”

Residents and council members alike said they were glad the town went through the decision process.

“I have never been happier and prouder to live in Chapel Hill,” said council member Sally Greene.

“And never been more proud to sit in this table.”

Stancil said the library renovation is expected to be finished by fall 2012.

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