April 20, 2024 at 1:40 a.m.
Commissioners Approve Purchase of Land for new East Lincoln Library
The new East Lincoln library will be located on NC73 about two miles west of East Lincoln High School. Lincoln County Commissioners voted Monday night (April 15th) to purchase the property (identified by its parcel number in the County's GIS (Geographic Information System) as parcel number 56957.
It's located on NC73 about a mile east of the Brevard Place/BethHaven Church Road intersection, about a mile and a half east of East Lincoln Middle School.
The County is buying the property for $1,275,350 or about $23,000 per acre. It is just over 55 acres, which Commissioners said will allow room eventually to add a park making the new East Lincoln library complex similar to the West Lincoln Library.
The new library will be named for NC State Representative Jason Saine, based on an earlier decision by Commissioners. Saine was credited with getting $18 million in funding for the Lincoln County Library in last year's state budget.
The Library Board wanted the money to be used to expand the Lincolnton library, but Saine told us last September that it could be used for any library purpose. Commissioners voted in December to use part of the money for a new East Lincoln library.
The Shanklin Library on Fairfield Forest Road (Westport) will continue to operate when the new library is built so the County will have two libraries serving the growing East Lincoln area.
The land for the new library is being purchased from the Sigmon Family Growth Revocable Living Trust. It previously belonged to Curtis Sigmon, brother of former County Commissioner Milton Sigmon.
Commission chairman Carrol Mitchem said the decision on the location for the new library had been an arduous task. The Clark family had offered an alternative location closer to East Lincoln High School when they submitted a rezoning request that would have allowed the building of a townhome development off N. Ingleside Farm Road. The rezoning request was withdrawn, but David Clark said the offer of the land was still valid unrelated to the rezoning. Some Commissioners said the land the Clarks offered was rocky and would be more costly to develop for building.
Commissioners said Sigmon wouldn't personally profit from the sale of the land, and Commissioner Bud Cesena said the location is "in the dead center of where the consultant told us to put it."
During the Public Comments portion of Monday night's meeting, a West Lincoln resident said she was concerned with the price the County was paying for the land. The GIS system lists the value as $624,780--$650,570 less than what the County is paying.
Wanda Hallman said she thinks the County is paying too much for the land.Wanda Hallman also urged Commissioners to make sure the company that builds the library be one with experience in libraries. She said the West Lincoln location was good, but the builder had little if any experience in building libraries.
Commissioners have made no decision on the possible new location of the Lincolnton library. Currently housed in the Jonas Building on West Main Street, it will have to be in a new location. The Jonas Building can't be expanded by building upward and there isn't room to add on to it by expanding outward. There is also no suitable location available for a new building in the downtown area which is where the Library Board has been adamant in insisting is the only suitable location.
Commissioners purchased the old AMC Theater location on N. Aspen Street anticipating renovating the old movie theater as a new library location. They bought the property at a bargain price and renovating it for a library would cost much less than building a new building. The property includes additional land that could be used for a park to accompany the library.
At their April 1st meeting, Commissioners approved a contract with J.M. Cope to serve as Construction Manager at Risk for the East Lincoln library project. The CMR system has become popular with city and county governments in recent years replacing the old method of first developing plans, then seeking bids for construction. Under the CMR method, the Construction Manager at Risk oversees projects from design through construction, delivering a finished project at a guaranteed maximum budgeted price unless the governing body decides to add to or delete from their plans. Under the old method, some projects had to be changed, usually lessened, to meet the budgeted amount after bids came in higher than expected.
Comments:
You must login to comment.