If the city council approves the move, a temporary library will
open along Leavesley Road later this summer while construction
crews build a new library.
If the city council approves the move, a temporary library will open along Leavesley Road later this summer while construction crews build a new library.
The Santa Clara County Library Joint Powers Authority, which operates the library that the city owns, has recommended the city contract with Robert’s Construction’s Company to rent its 10,000 square foot building off Leavesley Road near Swanston Lane in north Gilroy. The site has 70 parking spots and will be able to handle the library’s average daily crowd of about 1,200 people, City Administrator Tom Haglund wrote in a staff report. The city council was scheduled to vote on the relocation Monday night.
The proposed lease term would begin Aug. 1 and last through July 31, 2012, at a cost of nearly $135,000 a year, or $1.15 per square foot per month. The money will come from the $37 million bond voters approved last November, and the bond proceeds will reimburse the landlord for – among other improvements – repainting the walls and constructing a reading room.
County library officials looked at other sites around the corner on Murray Avenue and on the east side of U.S. 101 on Arroyo Circle. They also considered the former Garlic Festival building downtown at 7600 Monterey Street, but the downtown will likely lose out – much to Gary Walton’s frustration. The long-time developer with a vested stake – both personal and financial – in downtown Gilroy has been trying to revitalize the area for years.
He owns a 10,000 square foot reinforced concrete building with parking near Monterey and Third streets. He also has another building on Fourth Street that is up to all current codes and could “easily (be) made available for a library.” Walton bemoaned the staff recommendation that the temporary library be placed on Leavesley Road as a “lost opportunity” to bring an average of 1,200 people a day to the city’s struggling core.
“That foot traffic would have provided a significant benefit for current merchants, who are already struggling, as well as provide incentive for new businesses,” Walton wrote in an e-mail to city officials last week. “Instead, what we will apparently end up with, is a library in a strip commercial center that is not only difficult to access by car, it is even less accessible and inhospitable to the elderly, the young and non-driver.”
Councilman Dion Bracco sits on the library board with 10 other public officials from throughout the county and said they looked at downtown Gilroy, “but just the weight of the books makes it hard to find a building suitable for a library,” he wrote in an e-mail. Building improvements, technology hook-ups “and of course price” were among the authority’s top concerns, he wrote.
