Plans for a new or remodeled Powell Library drew a step closer to becoming reality on Tuesday, with Park County commissioners agreeing to seek an architect for the project. However, it remains to be seen whether the decision will lead to action.

Amid an ongoing budget crunch, commissioners agreed to issue a request for proposals only after being assured that the consulting work would be entirely paid for with private dollars — and after making clear that they were not committing to building or renovating anything.

“I’m not ready today to buy into this,” said Commissioner Lloyd Thiel, noting that county revenue “is such a question” right now.

Still, there was support for moving things along.

“I was elected eight years ago and the Powell Library was a topic of discussion then; I don’t think it’s going to go away,” said Commissioner Lee Livingston. “Powell’s growing and the folks over there want to move forward with this project.”

A group of library boosters has been working with the Park County Library
Foundation and the Park County Library Board on the idea of an improved Powell Library for the past couple of years, batting around several concepts.

The request for proposals will ask the chosen building consultant to sort through five different ideas, all involving the library’s current location on the corner of Third and Clark streets.

The simplest concept would involve adding a second floor onto the east end of the Powell Library (the current children’s section and meeting room). That option, estimated to cost around $1.5 million, would bring the library from around 9,000 square feet of usable space to 11,600 square feet, with the potential for expansion.

Other concepts involve expanding the building to the north — going into or hanging over the current parking lot — for a total of 14,000 to 18,000 square feet. The priciest options would involve demolishing the current library and building a new, two-story 18,000-square-foot structure in the same spot or in the parking lot, at an estimated cost of around $6.3 million.

With so many options on the table, Library Board Chair Pat Stuart said she wants a plan and renderings in hand, so a final design can be chosen and library boosters can begin raising money.

“If we don’t do that, we’re left with what we have right now — which is a lot of people wanting a new library, wanting an expanded library and everybody having a different idea of what that looks like,” she said.

Stuart said she personally would prefer building a new structure, but noted the difficulty of finding the millions of dollars that would be needed.

“I think we all know that the money is a big deal,” said Geoff Baumann, who’s chairing the task force. “Everybody wants a shiny new building, but in reality that probably won’t happen.”

Commissioners made no commitments to ultimately fund renovations or a new Powell Library. If voters approve a 1% sales tax increase in next month’s election, Thiel said he’d fully support using some of that funding on a new or renovated Powell Library. But if that tax is shot down, he doesn’t think the county should move forward with the project.

“I mean, we can’t afford to replace roofs. And we’re looking at other buildings in the county and cutting costs,” said Thiel, who expressed the greatest reluctance to issuing an RFP. He suggested that library boosters wait until after the election, warning they could be wasting their money — perhaps up to $100,000 — on an architect.

However, if the county is unable to move forward with the project, Livingston said the consultant’s work could be temporarily shelved without getting too dated.

“Twenty years from now it might be dated,” he said, “but I think there’s going to be something happen between now and 20 years; I hope there is.”

Stuart said community members have been asking for an expanded Powell Library for the better part of the last 20 years. It was in the early 2000s, she said, that library leaders concluded both the Cody and Powell libraries were inadequate.

The county built a new Cody library in 2008.

“We turned our attention to Powell,” Stuart said, “but the recession hit and that was kind of the end of that.”

However, the idea has been revived in recent years. Library boosters commissioned a needs assessment in 2019 which concluded that the current Powell Library is “totally inadequate.”

“There is no part of the current facility that has sufficient space,” wrote Jim Minges, a Kansas-based library consultant.

Stuart said the building is “overrun with kids” in the afternoon, leading adults to avoid the facility at that time.

“We don’t have room,” she said, describing many library users and much library usage.

Minges’ needs assessment suggested that the new library should be around 20,000 square feet, but “economic realities” and other factors led project boosters to reduce the size, according to the draft RFP.

Under the timeline laid out in the document, architects would need to submit proposals to the commissioners by Jan. 12, with a consultant selected in mid-March and a final report due in December 2021. While the work will be privately funded, it will be steered and owned by the county government.

The fate of the proposed 1% general purpose sales tax may determine whether commissioners are willing to move forward on the project in the foreseeable future. However, Stuart said, “I’m not sure that’s going to change anything about the desire and need for a new library.”