Cedar Rapids leaders seek answers on library

CEDAR RAPIDS - Council members Monica Vernon and Pat Shey last night said they wanted to step away from the library board's spreadsheet analysis of possible sites for the city's new $45 million library and get some answers to broader, more subjective questions.

Shey and Vernon both said they wanted to see which proposed site for a new library would be most conducive to driving additional private-sector development around it. Vernon said a city planner needed to weigh in on the question.

Replay Rick Smith's live blog coverage of last night's meeting.

Shey noted that the city spent a considerable amount of money in recent years to build a minor league baseball park and an ice arena, but neither was built in the correct place to spur additional development around it, he pointed out.

Colleague Justin Shields said he agreed with Vernon and Shey and disagreed with the library board's skittishness about building on a spot that might have been touched by water in the June 2008 flood.

All three blocks proposed for the new library - the Gazette Communications block, which the library board has selected as its top choice, the Emerald Knights block and the TrueNorth block - are outside the 500-year flood plain, though the

TrueNorth site took on a little water in the flood.

Vernon said she wanted to know exactly how much water - the library representatives reported 18 to 24 inches at different spots - was on the TrueNorth site.

Much of the library board's presentation, from board president Susan Corrigan and library director Bob Pasicznyuk, centered on the need for 200 to 300 parking spaces. Parking, they said, is a top concern of library patrons.

Several council members expressed skepticism at the board's focus on parking.

Shey, for instance, noted that the proposed parking ramp on the Emerald Knights site - there is not adequate room next to the block for surface parking, the library representatives said - cost more than the price to buy the block.

Pasicznyuk said surface parking was preferable for patrons, but Vernon said the last thing the City Council wanted was a bunch of surface parking lots downtown around every building. The city, she noted, isn't building a surface parking lot for the Paramount Theatre, though its patrons probably would like one, she said.

Vernon said the downtown has an excess of parking, and she wants to know what the city's experts think about parking related to the library. Shields said the city needed to look at the downtown parking as a whole, not just parking for the library.

The council will make the site decision Feb. 24.