New Cedar Rapids library could be named after you — for $23 million

A donor will need to contribute at least 51 percent of the total project cost before the Cedar Rapids library board will be able to consider naming the city's coming new library for the donor under a new policy adopted by the board on Thursday.

That's $23.205 million for a library expected to have a total cost of $45.5 million.

Board member Hilery Livengood assured last evening that the board didn't just pull the number out of the air.

Rather, she said a team of library board members and others first reviewed policies and practices used by an assortment of libraries and other entities nationwide before arriving at a new naming policy and specific guidelines for the new library.

The new guidelines for the new Cedar Rapids new library, which is expected to be built by late 2012, will provide some recognition to donors from the smallest to the largest, Livengood noted.

Under the guidelines, those who give $500 or more will have their names placed on a permanent donor wall in a central place in the new library.

Those who contribute $2,500 can have their name affixed to a nameplate on one of an expected 200 seats in the library's auditorium.

Those who give $5,000 to $15,000 will have the option of having their names placed with “certain prominent fixtures” in the library, and Livengood used the examples of a work of art or a row of bookshelves.

For now, the board also approved a long list of likely features in the new library on which donors of between $25,000 and $3 million might have their names affixed.

The library's auditorium tops the list of likely most important naming opportunities except for the library itself, followed by an outdoor plaza, a cafe, a skywalk, the first floor, second floor and so on all the way to down to the “staff lounge.”

Livengood reported that the library's foundation, which will run the private capital campaign for the new library, already has taken in nearly $1 million in donations from individuals, corporations and organizations in the wake of the June 2008 flood that destroyed the library on First Street SE. These “extraordinary early donors” - which includes a $500,000 donation from Archer Daniels Midland Co., she said - will be the first to be offered naming rights in the new library.

The new library also will find places to recognize those who had been contributors to the flood-ruined library.

Much of the cost of the new library will be paid by disaster funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency with the help of state I-JOBS funds. At its meeting in late June, the library board heard that the target for the capital campaign may need to be at least $6 million, though Livengood said the accurate figure will be announced when the forthcoming campaign kicks off.

In developing the naming-rights policy, no discussion took place about whether or not a donor might contribute at least 51 percent of the total project cost to be in a position to have the library named for him, her or it, Livengood said.

After the Thursday meeting, Livengood and Bob Pasicznyuk, the library's director, found themselves discussing the definition of “total project cost,” with Livengood saying she initially had thought the naming rights would be tied to total cost for the structure with, for instance, the $9-million piece of the estimated $45.5-million project cost that will go for materials, furniture and other contents not included in total cost. But then she noted that the approved policy says “total project cost,” which Pasicznyuk says means $45.5 million to him.

Pasicznyuk said it might make for a forthcoming healthy debate among Livengood and her library board colleagues should a donor step forward with a substantial donation, though one a bit short of 51 percent of $45.5 million.