By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
A library and a hotel are an unseemly mix, but the intermingling of the two could be an important lynchpin of the oft-discussed expansion of the Irvin L. Young Memorial Library.
Adding on to the library’s existing facility in Whitewater has been a conceptual talking point for more than a decade, and City Manager Cameron Clapper presented a new possibility to those plans at a Common Council meeting March 1.
Using a current project in Platteville as a blueprint, the city is in the early stages of talking with a potential developer about building a hotel and coupling the construction project with the library add-on, which is expected to encompass 26,000 square feet.
Clapper laid out some of the details with the council last week and prefaced his comments by saying, “I want to stress this is just an idea.”
For all components of the library expansion to be realized, about $10 million in funding will be necessary. The project could include additional meeting and storage space and an enhancement of the library’s existing media collection.
“In an effort to reduce cost and make an expanded library a reality, staff and Library Board members have been exploring a variety of public-private partnership strategies,” Clapper and Library Director Stacey Lunsford wrote in a memo.
The projected cost of the expansion has frequently been a sticking point — particularly if only public dollars are allocated toward it.
The hotel proposal first bubbled to the surface when Clapper, Lunsford and other city staffers met with a representative of a company called United Development Solutions, which is handling the Platteville project.
Like Whitewater, officials in the city of Platteville have been eyeing a library expansion, and a 72-room hotel near that community’s library is helping bring the project to fruition. Platteville’s library expansion closely mirrors what has been considered in Whitewater.
There are a series of technical maneuvers in Platteville that are aiding in the public-private arrangement. During the initial seven years of the hotel’s operation, the development company owns the property, outright, and as such is able to take advantage of new market tax credits.
The library, in turn, leases its expanded space during this period of time.
Once the seven-year period passes, the library portion of the combined development is returned to the city.
Specific figures would have to be fleshed out further, but Clapper said he estimates the public-private arrangement in Whitewater could yield about $3 million in savings, meaning the city’s cost of expanding the library would hover around $7 million.
Other than asserting it would be amenable to continuing the exploration, the council did not take any formal action on the plan. With the green light activated to continue the preliminary stage of the review, Clapper and Lunsford will continue digging into the finite details with United Development Solutions.
Further details are expected in the months ahead.
