Search still on for new city library

WASILLA — Meta-Rose Square will not be the future home of a new Wasilla public library, at least not for the next two or three years. This was an unofficial agreement reached by the city council, library supporters and business owners at a roundtable meeting on Wednesday.

The decision comes two months after the city purchased the building for $1.5 million. The original intent was to convert the building into a new library, but this condition was not in the final contract after library supporters and the building’s tenants objected and an engineering report that estimated the retrofitting costs between $500,000 and $2.9 million.

At Wednesday’s meeting to discuss the future of the city-owned property, Councilman Kristofer Larson said he refused to vote for the purchase if the city was locked into making it a library. He wasn’t sure about the feasibility then, and today “it is still way too much of a square peg, round hole.”

Regardless of future use, Larson said the city got a great deal on the piece of real estate. He would like to see the city hold on to the property, selling it when the market improves and using the profit to fund a new library.

“Basically, I want to leave the tenants alone,” Larson said.

From the beginning, the city said it would give existing tenants until at least 2011 before they had to move out. But still, the tenants have expressed fear over finding suitable alternative retail locations.

Testifying before the council on Wednesday, Catherine’s Nails owner Catherine Felize-Smith said the proposed library would tear apart the family feeling of the Meta-Rose Square, the same feeling Wasilla was built upon. And all of this for a temporary fix to the library’s woes.

“Your Band-Aid is going to cause a big rip for us,” Felize-Smith said.

No one argued the city’s need for a new library, and community volunteers have been working toward this goal for over 20 years, said Jeanne Troshynski, chairwoman of the steering committee. Floor plans have been drafted, and now the steering committee is looking for land and financing.

“If we wait, who’s going to say the bonds will be available?” asked Councilwoman Taffina Katkus, who still expressed interest in looking to the Meta-Rose as a temporary location for a library.

Councilwoman Dianne Woodruff took the opposite tack, saying she believes funding would become available in five years or so. If the city can get the library it wants in the next 10 years, Woodruff said, it doesn’t make sense to spend money retrofitting the shopping center.

Regardless of the future plans, the city doesn’t have the money to pay the retrofitting costs for the building right now, city controller Joan Miller said. It will realistically take the city two to three years to get the necessary funding, she said. In the meantime, there is nothing stopping the city from operating the Meta-Rose as long as revenue goes into an enterprise fund to pay for something like a new library.

At this, Mayor Verne Rupright suggested the city extend the rental agreements with existing tenants for three years. This would give the tenants “sufficient time and a lot of repose,” the mayor said, and the library steering committee can continue working toward getting a new building.

In the meantime, the city can turn the now-vacant third floor into a reading room, Rupright said. This should prevent the city from having to pay back the $215,000 in federal grant money it received to support a new library.

Members of the library steering committee, tenants of the Meta-Rose and most of the city council members seemed to like the idea of pushing the rental agreements back three years.

“In two years, we will have a better idea of where we are at,” Councilwoman Leone Harris said.

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.