Library Board votes to move on property

The Dothan Library Committee unanimously approved a proposal to recommend the purchase of three properties east of the Houston-Love Memorial Library for an expansion to the library complex.

Immediately following the meeting, the Dothan Library Board met and whole-heartedly approved the committee’s recommendation to acquire the property at a cost of $1.4 million.

“I’m ecstatic. It’s been a while coming, but this is a real positive movement,” said Librarian Bettye Forbus. “It is a real symbolic day for me.”

The three properties include a small strip mall, a tire store and an office building on North Oates Street across from the Houston County Administrative Building.

The selection of a location solves numerous problems with a multi-year effort to construct a new facility to upgrade or relocate the library, housed in a former elementary school constructed in 1940.

Staying on-site keeps the library downtown, which many residents and officials favored, as part of the efforts to revitalize downtown Dothan. Having a location enables fund-raising to begin in earnest.
Including parking, to be shared by the U.S. Post Office across the street, the library campus will eventually comprise a city block.

Library Board member Ted Hall said the board had been anticipating the recommendation from the committee, set up by the administration of former Mayor Pat Thomas to keep the project on track.
Hall motioned to “enthusiastically endorse” the purchase as Phase I of a three-phase project, with Phase 2 being the construction of a new facility and Phase 3 being the renovation or replacement of the existing library building over time as funding allows.

The recommendation will now go before the city and county commissions for approval. Still unanswered is the question of funding.

After the vote, Mayor Mike Schmitz said he knows the community still has unanswered questions.

“It is a commitment and we need to make that,” he said. “I hope they come together with a more specific plan, with phases laid out. There are a lot of questions. Will the county participate and if so how? We just have a lot of talking to do.”

Committee chairman Taylor Barbaree called this the first in many steps.

It was also noted that after a rendering was unveiled two weeks ago there were some protests because the drawing showed Burdeshaw Street being closed off. There is no plan to put in a cul de sac on Burdeshaw in front of the post office building, which the city owns.