[September 17, 2009] McAllen library plans progress Tweet MCALLEN, Sep 17, 2009 (The Monitor - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- There's a book on a shelf behind Jose Gamez's desk: Planning the Modern Public Library Building. It makes sense. Planning McAllen's ultra-modern new library at the corner of North 23rd Street and Nolana has been Gamez's main focus since he became the city's library director in 2006. That year, the city bought the Wal-Mart building at 4001 N. 23rd St. for $5 million with the intention of renovating it into its new, $15.8 million library. Three years later, Gamez says the city's construction planning is 60 percent complete. He hopes to open up bidding for contractors by November. If all goes according to plan, construction will begin in January and the library will open in December 2010. "I think what the public wants to see is asphalt being broken," Gamez joked in his third-floor office at the current main library at 601 N. Main St. "It is a huge project and there's no library like this one, so there's no model out there that we're copying." Debate over the costs of the project last year pushed back the grand opening, originally slated for March 2010. After hearing initial cost estimates to renovate the structure, city officials considered demolishing the building and starting from scratch, so architects presented cheaper alternatives, Gamez said. The city stuck with the original plan. The city had spent years trying to find a new site for the main branch of its library system when Wal-Mart left the North 23rd and Nolana location to build a new Wal-Mart Supercenter just down the street. "To me, the library fit well into that particular area because, as McAllen continues to grow north, it's becoming more of a high-traffic area and corner," said City Commissioner Hilda Salinas, a member of the city's library committee. "It will get a lot of visibility and use there." McAllen's downtown can no longer sustain the traffic the current, 40,000-square-foot main library generates, she said. The library portion of the former store will be almost 130,000 square feet and will have 864 parking spaces. But Stuart Klein, a downtown business owner who started the Save Our Library Group in 2005, said the site is too large for a library and the city is using up a prime space for business. "I think the city spent a lot of money on an unnecessary piece of property," Klein said. "They could've bought something smaller and saved the taxpayers a lot of money. They took one of the best corners in town." Save Our Library formed a few years ago because of concerns among residents about what would happen to the existing library -- which draws people to the city's downtown. Though no decision has been made, Gamez said the building might house a library arts branch or the McA2 Creative Incubator currently at South 16th Street and West Jackson Avenue, or the city might open it up for use by the Parks and Recreation Department. Whatever happens, Gamez hopes the existing library will be used in a way that will draw people to the center of town the way it has for the past six decades. The new library site will have a number of features, such as conference and meeting rooms, a kitchen for catered events, a coffee shop and a computer lab with room for 150 workstations that will remain open to the public even after the library closes. If 11 alternate features -- or "wow" features, as Gamez described them -- are approved by the City Commission, the total price tag will climb to $28.5 million. Those features include a skylight in the center of the building and an auditorium. Victor Gonzalez, an engineering designer with the city's architecture department, said the city has paid about $895,000 in consultant fees to local firm Boultinghouse Simpson Architects and Minneapolis-based MS&R since they were awarded a $1.2 million design contract in May 2007. Nick Pipitone covers McAllen and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4446. To see more of The Monitor, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.themonitor.com. Copyright (c) 2009, The Monitor, McAllen, Texas Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]