NEWTON, Kan. —A major milestone for the new Newton Public Library project is on the City Commission agenda for Tuesday. According to City Manager Kelly McElroy, the council will be receiving the plans and specs for the building and setting a date to receive bids.
The Library Board and the fundraising committee have worked extremely hard over the past two years to meet or exceed their fundraising goals, and they also will give a report on their progress Tuesday.
According to meeting agenda documents, the proposed project builds a new 25,000 square foot library building on the east end of Military Park with a new parking lot on the northwest side of the new building.
Following construction of the new building, the library contents will be moved into the new building and the old building will be demolished. A large turfed open space will be created west of the building for gatherings of all sizes in the park.
The new structure will have a drive-up book drop off, glass walled study rooms, large meeting rooms, young adult space with gaming area, separate space for children's book collections & programs, technology areas, family restrooms, outdoor seating space and more.
The Campaign Leadership Committee (CLC) volunteered their time to solicit donations. They were led by Angela Becker and Ann Adrian co-chairs of the Committee and Library Director, Cari Cusick.
Swanson House, the subconsultant to the Architect, HBM Architects helped guide the group's efforts. The CLC has raised $3,267,454.40 of private funds committed towards the project. Over $1.4M of the funds raised came from foundations/businesses/organizations and $100,000 was donated by North Newton. About $1.8M of the donations were from individuals who support the library project.
There are still additional donation requests on the table and the CLC continues to raise more funds to help the library with their funding needs well into the future.
Due to the rising construction costs and strong desire to build what is needed, and to provide the community with a public library that can be enjoyed well into the future, the Library Board chose to provide $1.2M in cash toward the project if needed to cover budget shortfalls once final bids are received. This is in addition to their original commitment of $1.3M spread out in $65,000 per year payments to the city over the life of the 20 year project bonds.
The Newton City Commission meeting is Tuesday at noon.
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