Drive-up coffee shop added to downtown library plans

CEDAR RAPIDS - The library board is looking to add a first - a drive-up window for coffee - to the library under construction downtown while the options for a west-side branch have been narrowed to three sites.

This week, the board gave the go-ahead to Bob Pasicznyuk, the library's director, to finalize a contract with local coffee shop Brewed Awakenings to open a store inside the city's new library set to open in June 2013.

“I've never seen a library have a drive-up for coffee,” Pasicznyuk said.

The city's $49 million library is going up without the need for revenue from property taxes. The funding comes from federal disaster funds, a state I-JOBS grant, private donations and $4 million in revenue from the city's local-option sales tax that has been for flood recovery.

However, the new library, as with the former, flood-hit one on First Street SE, will face the typical challenge once opened. That is, paying to operate the facility.

The intent of the in-library coffee shop is to help the library raise some extra operating revenue while providing an amenity to library users. In the past, though, such ventures have struggled at the library because of insufficient business.

“The experience in the past has been less than positive,” said Doug Elliott, president of the library board.

The drive-up window, Elliott said, is designed to increase business enough to make the in-library coffee shop work. He added the “buzz” of the new library and the community's growing affinity for coffee shops also should help.

In the proposed contract, the library would lease space to Brewed Awakenings for $1,607 a month, with the expectation that the library business would generate at least $3,000 a month in revenue for the vendor.

Brewed Awakenings' main store is across from Coe College, at 1271 First Ave. SE. The business also has a location in the A Avenue NE lobby of St. Luke's Hospital and has operated CSPS Carlo Bar on the second floor at the CSPS Hall in New Bohemia.

Just this week, Brewed Awakenings announced it will open a coffee shop on the first floor of the CSPS Hall.

Only Brewed Awakenings competed for the library's spot, Elliott said.

On another front, two sites in Westdale Mall a third in part of a former Target store across Williams Boulevard SW will now be considered for a permanent home for the library's west-side branch.

In January, the board had narrowed its choices to two - one at the former Osco drugstore space in Westdale Mall, where the library now is operating, and one in the former Target store.

However, the board decided to seek additional proposals after property owners called with possible offers following public forums in January.

The only new written proposal to arrive by a Friday afternoon deadline also came from Westdale Mall. The mall managers also are offering the library board the space that housed Bishop's Buffet until it closed in January 2009. The library board had ruled that second-floor space out after its engineer concluded that the floor couldn't hold the weight of the branch library's books. However, the mall's proposal for the Bishop's space includes a plan to reinforce the floor so it can hold the books, Pasicznyuk said.

Pasicznyuk said the three proposals will be forwarded to the library's building committee for analysis before the matter heads to the full library board for a choice.

The library board's earlier analysis leaned toward the former Target store as the better site because it had access to a loading dock and had the ability to house a substance abuse information center and its materials. The state of Iowa pays the library to house the center, but Pasicznyuk has said the library would need another spot to warehouse the center's materials if it chose the Osco site in the mall for the branch library.