Pike shares his ideas for waterfront library

Railroad noise is concern for some

SAM TAYLOR

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BELLINGHAM — A waterfront- based library received a somewhat mixed reaction from the public Tuesday during a Bellingham Public Library meeting.

Mayor Dan Pike spoke to the library board and an audience of about 30 people on his earlystages vision for how a central library might fit in with the redevelopment of 220 industrial waterfront acres.

Pike told the group the library would be an early connector from “what is to what will be” just south and west of Roeder Avenue, along an extension of Bay Street near the area where the old Georgia-Pacific West Inc. tissue mill is being demolished.

FAIRHAVEN REPAIRS ON HOLD

City facilities manager Myron Carlson told the library board a $1.3 million first phase of renovation on the Fairhaven Library won’t begin until summer 2009.
Carlson said city consultant BOLA Architecture + Planning of Seattle, which did the renovation analysis, was not available for architecture work this year, and it’s too late to find someone else.
Carlson also said another $1 million is being requested in the upcoming budget cycle to do the second phase of repairs at the same time next year as the initial phase.

He said outgoing Western Washington University President Karen Morse supports including some type of WWU presence in the facility, meaning the university would foot some of the bill.

A parking garage would be paid for through parking funds rather than a library bond, Pike added, and overbuilding the facility to allow for commercial rental space could help pay for operating costs and help repay a bond. The library could use that space in decades to come, as more expansion is needed.

Thoughts from the public ranged from outright support to concern about railroad noise and how the library might fit in the overall plan for waterfront redevelopment.

“The location kind of scares me,” Kate Grinde said.

Grinde, a library supporter, said she assumed a new facility might be more environmentally friendly, meaning windows may be open more frequently for various reasons. But trains coming down the tracks on the site could put a damper on that.

“I’d hate to see us in this wonderful time build a building that is hermetically sealed,” she said.

Grinde said she was concerned that the construction of a library on the site might be too dependent on the waterfront development going forward as planned, while no major master plans have been developed.

Most in attendance appeared to simply want assurance that a new library would be built sooner rather than later.

“I would like this to go forward within one to 1.5 years, at most two years,” Pike said.

He added that the first phase of redevelopment on the property — about the size of three Bellis Fair malls — is supposed to be completed by 2016, and the library would be an early portion of that development if he has his way.

Pike continually emphasized that discussions about the project are extremely premature, and that he wasn’t “wedded to the idea” if others didn’t support it. He said he hasn’t heard anyone say the idea is a bad one. He called for more study, which library board Chairman David Edelstein backed up.

Edelstein said it wouldn’t be “prudent or fair” for the board not to do a site evaluation just as members did for several other sites over the last seven years.

“Going forward, we have an open mind,” he said.