A Greene Square Park sandwich: The Museum of Art on one side, the coming $45-million library on the other

The city's new $45-million public library is headed to the site of the TrueNorth insurance and financial services company where it will sit to face Greene Square Park and the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art on the park's other end.

Last night's City Council vote that led to the selection of the TrueNorth site could not have been more captivating.

With a standing-room-only crowd looking on, Mayor Ron Corbett asked each of the nine council members to make a case for one of the three proposed library sites. The vote was four for TrueNorth, four for the Emerald Knights block, and one for the Gazette Communications block.

Corbett then asked council members to name a second-place vote, some of whom did and some didn't.

But it was council member Chuck Swore - he had voted for the Gazette Communications block because it was the library board's choice - who said the Emerald Knights block, just off an Interstate 380 exit and between First and Second avenues SE, is ripe for commercial development and, for that reason, is not a good place to put a public library.

Corbett then asked Swore if he would ask for a vote, and Swore joined the four TrueNorth advocates on the council - Monica Vernon, Pat Shey, Justin Shields and Tom Podzimek - to assure a vote in favor of the TrueNorth site.

Corbett and council member Kris Gulick, both of whom had favored the Emerald Knights site, joined in the majority in what Corbett said was a “show of council unity.” Council members Chuck Wieneke and Don Karr, also Emerald Knights backers, voted no.

Some last-minute cost figures from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which will pay some of the site purchase cost and some of the construction cost, suggested that the Emerald Knights site would be more than $4 million less expensive to buy than the other two sites. But not all the costs, including parking, were factored in.

In response to the cost figures, council member Justin Shields said he was always “a little nervous about late-breaking information,” to which Susan Corrigan, the library board president, said she agreed.

Shields, Corrigan and City Manager Jim Prosser said FEMA was here to help the city and had been a good partner with which to work in back-and-forth negotiations about issues of cost.

Corrigan made one last pitch to the council for the library board's preferred site, the Gazette Communications block. But later, after the council vote, she said, “I'm totally OK” with the TrueNorth choice.

“I think what's important is that the community unite behind a site, so that's my request,” Corrigan said. “It was a tough decision. But it's time to rally. We need to get behind this site and we need to move this community ahead.”

In a council meeting break after the vote, council member Vernon said she told library board members she would help raise private donations to fill any gaps in the library construction budget.

“I think it's going to be inspirational,” Vernon said of the TrueNorth site. “I think it's going to integrate with downtown. I think it will provide excitement. And I think it's going to help with some development.”

Council member Swore said he was happy to be the one to move the vote off “dead center” and into the TrueNorth camp. He noted, too, that the city owns some downtown property, including an old library, which he wondered if TrueNorth might be interested in.

The four council members who initially sided with the Emerald Knights site liked it because it was on higher ground that the two other sites and because it was likely the cheapest to buy and the least valuable property to take off the property-tax rolls.

 TrueNorth backer Shey picked apart the just-arrived FEMA figures and report to point out that it had been misrepresented that the TrueNorth site, which is outside the 500-year flood plain, was at risk of 100-year floods, when, in fact, the report said a block near the TrueNorth block was.

Shields said a lot of businesses had reinvested in the downtown after the June 2008 flood, and the city should do the same with its library.

“I'm not fearful of that river,” Shields said. “I'm not one who says we run from it. We take precautions. We move forward.”