“You have to spend money to make money” is a common business adage, and it could very well be true for any hopes of building a new Shawano County Library.
The Samuels Group’s Kurt Berner is recommending the county hire the McDonald Schaefer firm to conduct a feasibility fundraising study to determine local financial support for a new library.
“I gave the library this recommendation, and I’m going to give the recommendation to you, but you guys need to figure out who approves it, when do you approve it, what are our next steps,” he told the public property committee May 7. “Essentially what they’re going to do is they’re going to get information from you or library members and say, ‘Who do you think could be some potential donors within your community?’ And then they’re going to reach out to them.”
The cost for such a study ranges from $15,000-$30,000.
When county supervisors agreed to cap a new courthouse and jail project at $121 million, several urged their colleagues to not forget about the needs of the public library, which has been in its current building since the 1960s.
According to McDonald Schaefer, the study would take about four months to complete. At the end, they would have a good idea of how much local donors would contribute to the project and what, if any, restrictions they may have for their donations.
“Then the fundraising efforts kick into the next phase where they put together a plan of how did that fundraising go,” Berner said.
McDonald Schaefer would then assist with raising those funds and more for a monthly fee for about 20 months, depending on how much work they do, as library fundraising committee members may do some of the work themselves.
Still to be decided is a location, and then floor plans.
Possible options include building new in the parking lot east of the current library at 128 S. Sawyer St., or buying an existing building and converting it.
“We need to figure out: ‘How do we make that decision?’” Berner said. “Do you want me to bring that to the full board? Do we want to give the pros and cons of each of them? Or is there another — is there a greenfield site that somebody wants to be able to pursue with the library?”
Venture Architects would create a floor plan and renderings that could be used in the fundraising campaign.
The Samuels Group and Venture had considered buying and adding on to the Genex Cooperative building at 117 E. Green Bay St.
“We think that’s probably a $12 million to $15 million project,” Berner said. “We think if you do something that is a greenfield, you’re probably somewhere between $18 million and $22 million.”
However, moving to the Genex building would require crossing East Green Bay Street, something frowned upon by the many school groups that use the library regularly.
