In 2009, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors voted to put plans for a new Crozet library on hold for about five years. On Wednesday, the board was briefed on the status of the project and learned that the first phase of the 18,000-square-foot library, its parking lot, was set to bid this week.
According to staff reports, lot construction will begin in July and will likely conclude in August. Plans for the building itself will be “bid-ready” by the end of the summer.
Not everyone is pleased with the progress. Mike Marshall, publisher and editor of the Crozet Gazzette, told C-VILLE in late 2009 that he was “chagrined” by the vote to put the library on hold and said that “the longer they delay, the more and more expensive it will get.” In a new editorial in the Crozet Gazzette entitled “Build the Library Already”, the editor argues the same point.
The current cost for the library is $9.86 million. Marshall writes that, if the county had taken advantage of the low construction costs, "it could have been done for $6.9 million." He adds that former Congressman Tom Perriello had secured a federal rural development loan at 4 percent interest for the project, but the county refused it.
“Let’s remember the history of government projects in Crozet," writes Marshall. "Jarmans Gap Road was supposed to be finished in 1998. The Crozet Avenue project was supposed to be done by 2008. The library was supposed to open this year. Time equals money and both are being wasted. The supervisors should take a loan and make the cold hard budget choices they ask to be elected to make. Build the library already."
To read the entire editorial, click here.