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Flagler County Library’s $14 Million South Branch ‘Nexus Center’ Breaks Ground in August, Ending 10-Year Wait

July 17, 2024 | FlaglerLive | 12 Comments

A rendering of the future south branch of the Flagler County Public Library on Commerce Parkway, breaking ground in August and opening in late October 2025.
A rendering of the future south branch of the Flagler County Public Library on Commerce Parkway, breaking ground in August and opening in late October 2025.

Almost a decade after Holly Albanese and the Library Board of Trustees first conceived it, the south branch of the Flagler County Library–to be called the Nexus Center–will break ground on Aug. 5 on the 7-acre parcel opposite the Flagler County Sheriff’s Operations Center, a short walk down from the future Bunnell City Hall now under construction.

The 23,000-square-foot, one-floor library, combined with the county’s social services offices, will open at the end of October 2025, and will have an enormous community rom that can seat 325 people, and can be subdivided: during the week, it’ll also be the site of the county’s congregate meals, an operation run by the Department of Health and Human Services.




The Flagler County Commission approved the $14.4 million construction contract with Ajax Building Company Monday evening.

“It’s been nine long years for me, just on that project, to get this facility built,” Albanese, the library director and assistant county administrator, said today. “I’m elated, relieved and looking forward to the future. This will be a great community resource. I’m proud of the work we’ve accomplished, and that we’ve brought over $6 million to the project.”

Two library Board of Trustees members have been on the board the entire nine years: Sharon Atack and Jim Ulsamer, who chairs the board and has been a vocal, sometimes more than insistent–and occasionally exasperated–advocate of the new library, which tended to get passed by the county’s bean counters year after year.

As a symbolic gesture, Albanese told members of her board that at the groundbreaking, she will be using the shovel from the 1998 groundbreaking of the Palm Coast library on Palm Coast Parkway. The shovel was used by the library director at the time, Doug Cisney, for whom the elegant, glassed-in room at the Palm Coast library is named. “Upon my retirement, I too will pass the shovel down to the next library director in hopes that they will be successful in any future endeavors of library services for Flagler County,” Albanese said.




The 1998 occasion was described with a similar sense of unreality by Carl Laundrie, who headed the News-Journal’s Flagler bureau at the time, and who would go on to be a president of the Friends of the Library many years later. “Monday was a day that seemed impossible to the Friends of the Library five years ago, but occasionally dreams do come true and Monday the Friends broke ground for a new public library for Flagler County,” Laundrie wrote in the Oct. 20, 1998 edition of the paper.

The cost of the 30,000 square foot library? $2.1 million. (In inflation-adjusted dollars, that comes to $4 million today, nowhere near the $16 million for the smaller branch library.) The county had borrowed $1.7 million from NationsBank at the time, with a $400,000 state grant. The library had outgrown its 5,600 square foot space at what used to be the Palm Harbor Shopping Center, what today is known as Island Walk.

Plans for a south branch library started in 2014. The county hired a construction manager in June 2022. The project got an $800,000 disaster-recovery grant, a $500,00 state aid grant, and a $4 million grant through the state Department of Commerce, part of the federal broadband initiative. Added to existing funds that have been accumulating (revenue from the library’s passport fund, impact fees, and $9.15 million from the general fund), that totaled over $16 million.




The tilt-panel walls will have a metal roof, with a community meeting room and a catering-ready kitchen, an office for the county’s Human Health Services department, and parking for 125 vehicles, including turf parking. The structure will withstand 150 miles per hour winds. It won;t be a public shelter during emergencies, but it will be a staging ground for first responders before and after emergencies.

The library will be stocked with materials from the old Bunnell Branch Library, now renting space–just 1,152 square feet–at Marvin’s Garden along State Road 100, and paying $1,500 a month in rent. The new library will eliminate that rent cost. (It cost the county an additional $12,000 to move its broadband service there.) It will also eliminate the $50,000 to $60,000 the county is paying Church ion the Rock, where Human Services has its congregate meals at the moment.

The Bunnell branch will officially be called the Fagler County Public Library at the Nexus Center. The Nexus name reflects the multi purposes of the building. It will open its doors as one of three major new institutional buildings on Commerce Parkway near he time when the Parkway will have pierced through to U.S. 1, ushering in its own series of development. In essence, the new library is part of a new center of gravity in Bunnell.

Visible construction will start on Aug. 21. Rhodes & Brito is the architectural firm. The original design was for a 32,000 square-foot facility. It was scaled down to lower costs.

“Of course to me the groundbreaking will be a celebratory day but nothing in comparison to the grand opening,” Albanese told members of the Board of Trustees.

“Thank you for getting us to this point, Holly,” Atack wrote her in an email. “It’s been one roadblock after another, but you have never given up. Can’t wait to see you with that shovel.”

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Tony says

    July 17, 2024 at 5:43 pm

    Knowing how Flagler County works the price will probably triple before they get it finished.

    0
  2. Jay Tomm says

    July 18, 2024 at 7:37 am

    It may, but funding is only provided for the cost. No more $ if it goes over. It’s being funded by grants & fed money. If that does happen it will sit unfinished a few years. LOL

  3. Why? says

    July 18, 2024 at 7:51 am

    This is the biggest waste of money yet!

    2
  4. Michael J Cocchiola says

    July 18, 2024 at 9:00 am

    Finally! Holly and Jim are to be congratulated for their patience and persistence. This new branch of the Flagler County public library system will be a bright star in the eyes of all who use it.

    Well done to all.

    2
  5. Skibum says

    July 18, 2024 at 10:34 am

    Wow, imagine having another library being built locally, where people can actually go to read and check out BOOKS, in the book ban loving state of Florida. Shhhhhush… don’t let the idiots in Tallahassee hear about this wonderful new, mind-opening site being constructed or they might come up with more draconian ideas to stifle people’s intuitive curiosity and thirst for knowledge. I hope our librarians are foresighted enough to take the extra step and dedicate a complete section in all of our local area libraries to banned books! That would be justice truly deserved here in the “free” state of Florida!

    1
  6. Endangered species says

    July 18, 2024 at 10:46 am

    I wonder which books your hop elected leaders will allow you to read. Lol

  7. Endangered species says

    July 18, 2024 at 11:08 am

    With all the book bans, why not just turn it into affordable housing instead make Jesus proud.

    1
  8. Flagler County Resident says

    July 21, 2024 at 12:10 pm

    I cannot believe we’re finally getting the library on this side of Flagler County! When my kids were little, we lived in Daytona North, and it was a struggle to find places to take them when my daughter was doing dance classes after work. I didn’t have enough time to drive home, and it wasn’t quite efficient to drive to the other library. The did love going to the library on Belle Terre, but this is amazing.

    Now that my kids are older and we live in town, the new sidewalk on 100 will make it even better. It’s a dream come true! We’re so looking forward to it!

    1
  9. Skibum says

    July 23, 2024 at 5:08 pm

    Don’t start celebrating yet. Remember, we live in the dystopian “free” state of FL, where the troglodytes who are ensconced in the GOP gerrymandered legislature do DeSantis’ bidding. The gov has previously backed the “Moms of Liberty” book bans that are still happening in various counties around the state. There is an eye opening article that was posted today on both the NBC and NPR news websites about a constable in TX who began his own criminal investigation into a few librarians for having books in the library that he believed violated Texas’ dystopian book ban oriented law, and he spent months gathering evidence, photographing library books, etc. and ultimately tried to get the local prosecutor to file multiple felony charges against the librarians just for doing their jobs and having books a few wackos found personally objectionable for checkout to the public. The article stated that at least 18 other GOP controlled states, including Florida, have seen similar investigations and potential criminal charges stemming from conservative legislative efforts to control what people can and cannot read. The link to this shocking news story, for those who have not already read it, is here:

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/school-librarians-banned-books-investigation-texas-rcna161444

  10. Just wait for it says

    July 28, 2024 at 5:40 pm

    Hahahaha. I have I bridge I want to sell you.

  11. Pcres says

    October 17, 2024 at 8:52 am

    You don’t want additional resources for the children and teens of flagler county? As the city grows, do you prefer that all the youth squeeze into that one building forever?

    1
  12. Mamar says

    October 17, 2024 at 9:00 am

    You think that a new library for the kids and teens of flagler county is the “biggest waste of money”?! Shows your priorities are in the wrong place.

    1

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