The Pine Bluff/Jefferson County Library Board of Trustees voted Wednesday to sign a contract with Little Rock-based Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects to design a library building and to hire a construction company.
The trustees chose Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects from among 12 architectural firms who submitted requests for qualifications to design the new library building to be located downtown.
Library Board president Tommy Brown said he and interim library director Taylor Eubank reviewed the contract at length. They did not discuss costs or fees.
Eubank said Polk Stanley Wilcox designed the Hillary Clinton Learning Center in Little Rock, the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock, the Arkansas Studies Institute and the Conway Library.
Eubank said the library trustees are also hiring Pine Bluff architect Fred Reed as a part of the overall package.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“Fred Reed is the man who will be here locally, who is familiar with the library [and who] has worked with the library,” Brown said. “If there are situations, problems, circumstances, he is the one we go to.”
Jefferson County voters approved a 3.0-mill tax increase to raise $14 million in November 2016 to construct a new library building in Pine Bluff, to renovate existing libraries in White Hall and Altheimer and to expand existing libraries in Redfield and the Watson Chapel neighborhood of Pine Bluff.
Library trustees Edward Fontenette, Brown, Anna Marie Jacks, Ann Talbot, Ethel Cogshell, Josephine Bell, Robert Thompson and LaNelle Roberts voted for this motion. No trustee made any comment regarding the contract.
The library board has also spent $385,000 to buy Main Street Development LLC property at 618 Main St. in Pine Bluff as the location of the new library building.
Lloyd Lee, Main Street Development LLC majority member, has rented space in the building before the library board purchased it. He operates a certified accounting firm.
The Main Street Development LLC building was damaged by Garland Trice’s neighboring building collapsing beginning in July 2014 and continuing through January 2017. The Main Street Development LLC building suffered from bricks falling onto its roof, causing damage that is still present. The city of Pine Bluff declared the Trice building to be a safety hazard and tore it down earlier this year. the building had previously been condemned and Trice failed to convince two judges that the building could be renovated.
The contract between the library and Main Street Development LLC states that Lee will also move the Main Street Development building from the main street site by March 31, 2018, and that he was to move his business operations from that site by August 1, 2017.
Earlier this month, the library trustees voted to consult its lawyer to negotiate whether to charge rent to Lee because he did not move his business away from Main Street Development LLC building by the deadline.
In an Aug. 10 interview, Lee said he expects to move his business operations from the Main Street Development building by late October 2017. He will later move the Main Street Development building to his future business home in White Hall. He said he has been delayed by weather and said he accidentally thought the deadline to move his business operations was later than Aug. 1.