City set to buy properties for new library

City set to buy properties for new library

Officials go with second option on 500 Block of East Broadway after concerns with first choice raise concerns

news@theeveningtimes.com

West Memphis City Council resolved to by an entire block on Broadway during the its final August meeting. The city library will relocate the stacks to the 500 block of East Broadway.

Purchases totaling a halfmillion dollars for four separate properties held by three different owners along the north side of the main street were authorized by city council in one vote resolutions.

The total aggregate purchase was set at $505,000.

The purchase decision represented a plan “B” for the library. A lot two blocks further east had been purchased contingent on a level one environmental survey which turned up possible problems around an office building.

This purchase faces the old Cotton Compress water tower landmark on Broadway being renovated by Main Street West Memphis. The water tower on the south curb will undergo a separate $240,000 transformation into a modern art sculpture by the new year and will stand opposite the library site.

A local attorney Mike Stephenson presented the four-way purchase plan to city councilors before the vote. Current businesses on the block will be impacted by the project include The Family Affair, the old West Memphis Federal Building now occupied by Carter Real Estate and the lock smith.

“This is the second site, the first one didn’t work out,” said Stephenson. “The sales are all contingent on one another, if one sale doesn’t go through none of them go through.”

Library Board president and banker, Murphy Smith, cast his vision for the look of the new building. No renderings have been done.

“It will be a focal point on Broadway,” said Smith. “It will be a new building. Besides books it will have more computers and digital resources. It will have more meeting rooms, the one in the existing library has over 200 booked functions per year. So we envision rooms of various sizes, a larger one for events. I see green space with seating. It will be the court square we don’t have.”

Mayor Bill Johnson talked money and reported the library in sound financial shape to under take the purchase and construction project.

“The library has done a fantastic job, they have over $3,000,000 in the bank,” said Johnson. “They have been good conservators of their funds. They have a stated source of income, 1.7 mils.”

The new library and water tower art piece would form a book end in the main street district and hopes for a new school building at 14th St. and Broadway would anchor the other end. AWest Memphis School District proposal for the shuttered Roberta Jackson Neighborhood and Hightower Park indicated the intention for locating the new east side school combining Jackson and Wonder Elementary Schools. City Council tabled a WMSD offer for the neighborhood center involving a swap for building and land. The city asked the district for a cash offer at market value and negotiations remained open and friendly according to the mayor.

“They’ll make us an allcash offer, but they don’t have a value on the property yet,” said Johnson.

What about the old library building when the move is made from Avalon to East Broadway?

“It’s a city building,” said Smith. “So, the library won’t do anything with it, but it will be up to the city to decide what to do with it. There is time — we aren’t moving out tomorrow. “

The project is expected to take two years in total with the first peek at the renderings anticipated within six months.

By John Rech