A new Powell Library building is one step closer to being a reality.

Park County Commission Chair and library board liaison Dossie Overfield told commissioners the Park County Library board heard from the state just before Thanksgiving that, if approved, the board would receive more than $8.4 million toward the roughly $12 million proposed new Powell Library building.

At Tuesday's meeting, commissioners unanimously approved granting up to $3.2 million out of the county's general American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to cover much of the amount needed to meet the designed 14,000 square foot building.

The current 9,000-square-foot library would be demolished to make way for the new building, and Overfield said there have been discussions about possibly using Homesteader Hall in the Park County Fairgrounds as a temporary library space for the one to one-and-a-half years needed to finish construction.

Overfield said the roughly $8.4 million grant award has been approved by the decision committee at the state, and now the budget office just needs to review it.

The commissioners’ approval of $3.2 million is contingent on the library receiving the state funding.

The library board’s grant request was for all of the $12.5 million in funding available for libraries through the Wyoming Library Multi-Purpose Community Facility Program. It’s funded with dollars from ARPA, one of the large spending bills Congress passed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At a November commissioners meeting, library board member Pat Stuart said seven other libraries also applied for funding from the same pot, but all of those requests were smaller projects and for much smaller amounts of money.

Library leaders have planned on a bigger facility, as a 2019 needs assessment found it’s “totally inadequate” for the growing Powell community.

In 2021, the Park County Library Foundation paid for GSG Architecture to design an expansion, but the library board recently decided to effectively restart the process and hired Johnston Architects of Seattle. Two architects with the library-focused firm visited the Powell Library in the fall and submitted preliminary sketches with the grant application.

Stuart said in November that, as a way to speed up the design process, Johnson and GSG have agreed to work together on the process.

“We’re very happy with this arrangement,” she said at the time.

Overfield said Tuesday the arrangement should also help in ensuring the project, if approved, can be finished before the expiration date of the state funds, all of which are required to be spent by the end of 2026.

She initially suggested the county use between $2.5 million and $3 million to help with the library project, but commissioner Scott Mangold said if they could spend $3 million to rid themselves of the sewer lagoons (by helping Cody expand its operations to accommodate county residents) they could spend more for the library, and so suggested $3.2 million.

“We're real fortunate that the library group got together to get a grant covering over $8 million,” he said. “Then we’ve got the extra funds from the federal government that should go toward something like this.”

Before the county awarded $3.2 million, it still had more than $7.6 million left of the $12 million received from the federal government via ARPA.

“I think this is a good opportunity to give what everybody has wanted for a long time,” commissioner Lloyd Thiel said.