MidTown

Library deal on table

City, school panel approve plan to resolve properties conflict

BY TIM CHITWOOD

Staff Writer

It seemed years of dispute were settled in just 39 minutes.

That's how long it took city and school district representatives to agree on a property swap that could set the course for what's finally to become of the land surrounding the Columbus Public Library on Macon Road.

In the deal endorsed Thursday by a joint committee of city councilors and school board members, the city will clear the 1.3-acre Firestone property at 3120 Macon Road and give it to the school district, along with a three-quarter-acre tract of land adjacent to the Mildred L. Terry Branch Library on Veterans Parkway, which the school district wants to expand.

In return, the school district will demolish the old Sears building near the Macon Road library and give the city 6 acres of that land to be used for a 2.5-acre central city services center and a 3.5-acre swimming pool site.

Though many details remain to be worked out and more disagreements may arise, city and school leaders grew almost giddy with relief and optimism during their lunchtime joint property committee meeting at the Columbus Government Center -- laughing, sharing congratulations and applauding the committee's unanimous vote to recommend the land swap to the full school board and full city council.

"This is huge," said board member John Wells.

"This is a milestone," City Manager Isaiah Hugley said.

"I've said all along that I want to put this thing to rest," Mayor Jim Wetherington said.

The nine member school board is expected to vote on the land swap Monday night. The 10-member council will consider it Tuesday morning.

The details

The 6 acres the city's to get also will accommodate a parking garage to be shared by the city and the school district.

With funds from its 2003 sales tax referendum, the school district plans to build a central office building on Macon Road, immediately in front of the city's service center. District leaders said no estimate of that cost was available Thursday.

The city has $3 million from its 1999 sales tax to build the service center, where residents can buy tags, register to vote or conduct other city business.

The city and the school district will share the cost of building the garage, which has yet to be estimated. The garage is to serve not only the city and school district offices, but also the city pool, which could be expanded to a full aquatic center. That may involve a new YMCA building, too.

The local YMCA board sent city and school leaders a March 5 letter expressing its interest in "partnering" with the city to build and manage an aquatic center with a pool suitable for swim competitions. The city has $3.2 million from a 1999 sales tax referendum to spend on a new pool, but the total cost of an enclosed aquatic center is estimated at roughly $6.5 million.

That leaves the city looking to cover the difference, to build the facility local swimmers desire. That makes the YMCA's participation more appealing. But Genia Webb of Columbus Citizens for a Natatorium said her group wants assurance that any pool built with public money will prioritize public access, and not give preference to YMCA members.

But that's not part of the land swap: "This project has nothing to do with the YMCA," Hugley emphasized during Thursday's meeting. Any arrangement with the YMCA would be a separate issue decided after the land swap goes through, he said. He stressed that ensuring public access to the pool would be the city's "first and foremost" priority if it negotiated with the YMCA.

The YMCA had considered building a new branch on property behind the library, a site formerly occupied by a Carmike movie theater. But much of that land, now city-owned, is in the Lindsay Creek flood plain, which limits what can be built there.

Were the city to offer the YMCA land closer to Macon Road, then the YMCA might contribute to building an expanded swim center.

Other costs associated with the land swap are yet to be pinned down. Deputy City Manager David Arrington said an early estimate of what it would cost to clear the Firestone property was $150,000. Bobby Hecht, the school district's director of construction, said clearing the Sears property could cost $500,000 to $600,000.

Another question is: What will the new buildings look like?

School board member Philip Schley said the school district plans to build a "dignified, scholarly looking building" for its central offices, and he hoped the city services center also would be "cosmetically appropriate."

Joked Hugley: "We were looking to you to make sure you were going to come up to the standard." He promised the city would pick its building plans carefully.

Already cleared are two parcels of city-owned property next to the Mildred Terry Library at 640 Veterans Parkway. Numbered 616 and 628 Veterans Parkway, the two lots combined total .737 acres.

Conveyed to the school district, that land would help expand the Terry library from 4,200 square feet to 18,000 square feet. The district has $2.5 million from its 2003 sales tax referendum and $200,000 from the Synovus Foundation to help pay for that expansion, but it still needs about $1.8 million more, said Claudya Muller, director of the Chattahoochee Valley Regional Library System. "We can raise that in this community," she said Thursday.

The background

Though the facilities the city and the school district plan to build will be funded with sales tax money, most of the property they're swapping was not purchased with such funds.

The city government used general-fund money to buy the Firestone property for $643,300 in 2001, just to ensure it had control over that corner of Macon Road and Boxwood Boulevard, which is right in front of the library. Clearing that lot would open a view of the new library from Macon Road.

The school board used $2.6 million from its fund balance to buy the 15-acre Sears site in 2003, planning then to consolidate its administrative offices in a central building.

The land swap endorsed Thursday would take effect once the library project is complete. The $50.4 million library, funded by a 1999 sales tax, opened on Jan. 3, 2005. The library board overseeing it now is going over a final list of additions and changes to finish the project.

Once that's done, the 14-acre library and 23 acres around it -- land once occupied by the Columbus Square Mall, which the city bought in May 2000 with $7.5 million in '99 sales tax money -- will be conveyed to the school district, which owns and operates the library system. How the rest of the land around the library will be used is yet to be determined.