FEMA tells city to assume hefty climate-control costs at old library; should city sell, trade or demolish it?

CEDAR RAPIDS - Fresh off a spellbinding deliberation and hairsplitting vote last week to build a new $45-million library across Fourth Avenue SE from Greene Square Park, the City Council now faces another question: What to do with the empty, flood-wrecked library on First Street SE?

Both the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, reported this week that FEMA no longer will pay to control the temperature and humidity in the old library now that the council has picked a site on which to build a new library, construction on which will occur with FEMA's financial help.

In fact, FEMA spokeswoman Bettina Hutchings this week was clear about FEMA's position on the old library. The city assumed responsibility for climate control on the building on Feb. 24, the night the council picked a site for the new library, she said.

Eyerly said the monthly cost for climate control, which is powered by generators at this point, will cost what it has been costing FEMA since the flood of June 2008: about $50,000 a month.

“It will force us to make some timely decisions regarding climate control and the old site,” Eyerly said.

Mayor Ron Corbett on Tuesday said he was “dismayed” at what he said has been a lack “advanced planning” since City Hall has known for many months that the library would not be returning to the old library site.

Corbett said his current preference is to try to find a private-sector firm that would be willing to assume ownership of the property. It's no secret, he noted, that the city has proposed to insurance and financial services firm TrueNorth - which now occupies the site of the new library - that it trade the old library site for TrueNorth's current site.

At the same time, Corbett said he would not stand in the way of demolishing the current library if that would be the choice of a private-sector entity taking ownership of the property.

As for any near-term climate-control costs in the old library, the mayor said the city can't afford to pay $50,000 a month for those costs.

Flood-recovery director Eyerly said the big expenses are generator rental and fuel to run the generators. One way to lower the monthly costs would be to buy a new transformer and put the library back on the Alliant Energy power grid, which the city has done, for instance, at the Veterans Memorial Building. In any event, the climate must be controlled to prevent freezing now and mold growth once temperatures begin to rise, Eyerly said.

“So we will either need to sell it, trade it or make the decision to demolish it,” he said.

He added that a decision to demolish the building would mean the city could pull the plug on “life support immediately.”

“The meter is running and we need to move on this as soon as possible,” Eyerly said.