The St. Pete Beach City commission is facing several challenges left for them from prior years.
They have been struggling, for example, with decision-making regarding a new library. Workshops are being held, one in October, the next is Wednesday, November 4th at 4:30 pm before the regular Commission meeting, to look at alternatives for rehab of the existing library or building a new one. One choice was to build on the site of the old police building, but a shortage of parking north of 75th Ave. is a challenge there. Another option is to acquire the rest of the block east of the current library for an expanded building and use the current site for parking.
The possibility of moving the library to City Hall has been studied and found feasible, but the cost of building a new city hall was a stumbling block.
At the October workshop, a new option was put on the table, the acquisition of the 100 Corey building. Located across Corey from City Hall, the 10-year-old 8,100 s.f. office building is available for lease, purchase or lease with option. Sheyla Shulte, owner of the building since 2009 along with Joe, her husband and business partner in freight forwarder Uni International attended the workshop and expressed her interest in doing whatever is best for the city. The building comes with about 30 parking spaces, which could be very valuable in the city’s core shopping and entertainment district. Some could be sacrificed for an expansion of the building if and when needed. The city has a current year $2 million library relocation budget, plus a $200,000 grant expiring in February.
While the city manager quoted a recent consultant’s report saying City Hall needed 14 – 15,000 square feet, Mayor Maria Lowe and commissioners from districts 3 and 4, Melinda Pletcher and Greg Premer voiced hopes that the new alternative could work. “The other alternatives presented all have price tags that are too high” said Commissioner Pletcher. The city manager made plans to tour the 100 Corey building and a workshop and report his findings November 4th. The city’s budget concerns are well founded. Courts have recently granted a half million dollars to attorneys Ken Weiss and Tim Weber, the Plaintiff attorneys in a comp plan case brought by St. Pete Beach resident James Anderson.
The court also ruled in favor of the estate of Chester and Kathleen Chmielewski who had sued St. Pete Beach in 2009 for the illegal taking of their beach front property behind the Don Vista Center, south of the Lowes Don CeSar Resort. Although appeal is likely, that award could exceed $2 million. These two cases were the first 2 of 15 suits Attorneys Bryant Miller and Olive had briefed city leaders about 4 years ago, so the surprises are not over yet.
Back on the subject of the Library, Mayor Maria Lowe told Paradise News “The City Commission is looking forward to the feedback from the City Staff on the questions posed during the last workshop,” The Commission narrowed possible library options down to three possible solutions:
1) Relocate to current City Hall, which requires a solution for City Hall
2) Build a new Library on the current Library Site
3) Build a new Library on the site of the old Police Department Staff and City Commission are moving forward with great diligence, carefully evaluating each option to ensure that the cost/benefits are being properly weighed for the best outcome for the City Library patrons and future patrons.”
City Manager Wayne Saunders added, “The Commission will continue their discussion of options for the Library at the next workshop on Wednesday, Nov. 4, at 4:30pm, before the regular Commission Meeting. I have not completed my assessment of the 100 Corey Building, but I have toured the building and have pulled out the building plans and started looking at those. We have determined that the building was not engineered or constructed to accommodate a third floor as the owner thought it might. I will present my assessment at the workshop.”
Gregory Premer, Commissioner – District #3, said, “I am a firm believer that the current half-empty City Hall should be renovated for the new SPB Library. It’s a perfect current and future location for one of our most important community assets. As to the new City Hall, it appears that the under-utilized building at 100 Corey Avenue is an ideal location, although more specifics are needed. It would allow the city to keep the commission chamber in place and share meeting spaces with the library and general public, all at a very reasonable cost to the city and the taxpayers (myself included). And there may be a ‘lease-to-own’ option that could be an even better deal for the city. The fact that we share our library with our neighbors in South Pasadena and Tierra Verde leads me to believe that they should also share in the cost of the new facility, wherever it ends up. Lastly, if we can make the 100 Corey Avenue idea work for City Hall we could use the current library location for more parking, possibly adding public restrooms and relocating the PSTA bus area off 75th Ave. to open up the area for future renovations.”
Rick Falkenstein, Commissioner – District 2, said, “The Commission will be making a decision on our City of St. Pete Beach Library in the near future. I am requesting input from our residents on the following locations: remodel or build new at the current site, relocate Library to City Hall with City Hall staff moving to 100 Corey building, or build a new Library Building at the soon to be vacant Police Station site. I am excited to be the Commissioner from District 2 to make this decision that will be part of our city for the next 50+years. Please email or call with any suggestions you may have: dfalkenstein@stpetebeach.org 727-888-4556. We’re looking forward to the future.”
Melinda Pletcher, Commissioner – District #2 said, “I think having a state-of-the-art Media Center would be an amazing attribute for our City. When the Library expansion was originally brought up, it was going to be paid for with a $700,000 grant, $700,000 from the City and $700,000 via fundraising. The fundraising has only yielded $50,000 to date. We all have a lot of research to do before we move forward and see if any of the three options presented are even achievable. I will be looking at the minimum need studies, touring the new Madeira Beach City Hall complex, and investigating the feasibility of the 100 Corey location. Most importantly, however, is insuring the majority of the residents believe this is where they want their tax dollars being spent. Given the fact that we have been charged with over $2 million to settle lawsuits in the last month alone, I find it difficult to think the residents would support $3 to 7 million towards a new library.”
Terri Finnerty, Vice Mayor & Commissioner – District #1, “I’m in favor of building a new library. My reason is three-fold. First, I am not in favor of renovating the existing library since renovations are just that, a remake of an already irreparable existing old building, which usually results in throwing good money after bad to try to create a new desired vision. Second, moving the library to City Hall and City Hall to 100 Corey Avenue makes no sense since we would have to (again) renovate both buildings to meet our new vision for use of both buildings. City Hall was built to be City Hall and it has served that purpose well over the years. We have 25 employees housed there along with thousands of records and documents. Third, our consultants have informed us, our City Hall, for the size of our city with an eye on future growth, would require a space of 14,000 square feet. The building at 100 Corey Ave is approximately 7,000 square feet with no ability to build higher. That is half the required space needed. My suggestions are, after demolishing the police station we can use that land to build a new library, to function exactly the way we would like. Or, purchase the buildings in the rear of the library, demolish them along with the existing building and build a new library with room for additional parking.” PN
Story by Peter Roos and Steve Traiman