- April 19, 2024
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The new county library branch building planned for a site near State Road 100 in Bunnell will have have a conference center, micro-market cafe and podcasting room and is projected to open in summer 2024.
"Libraries have existed for more than 5,000 years, and we've gone from clay tablets to digital tablets. And the reason why we continue to survive is because we adapt to the changing times."
— HOLLY ALBANESE, library director
The library will be an approximately $16 million undertaking, replacing the small storefront library in Bunnell. It will be on Commerce Parkway, near the Wendy's restaurant and across the street from the under-construction Sheriff's Operations Center.
Although the county has ranked top in the state for a $500,000 library grant program for six years in a row, the state Legislature has annually opted not to fund the grant program, and the county now hopes to pay for the new library by using $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act money and selling off some of the vacant county-owned land next to the Palm Coast Parkway library branch building, which only uses 5 acres of its 19-acre site.
The county also has about $400,000 saved from the library's passport application service revenue.
"We've been pushing for this library for a number of years," County Commissioner David Sullivan said on Flagler Broadcasting's "Free For All Friday" program on April 1. "... There's unanimous consensus of the five commissioners that now's the time to go forward."
Modern libraries offer a range of services, Flagler County Public Library Director Holly Albanese said.
"Today, libraries are much more than just a warehouse for books — which, I think, is what a lot of non-library-users imagine when they think of a library," she said. "Libraries have existed for more than 5,000 years, and we've gone from clay tablets to digital tablets. And the reason why we continue to survive is because we adapt to the changing times."
The new library, she said, will be a "joint-use facility" that includes conference space, plus offices for the county's Human Services and Senior Services staff.
The bulk of the 32,000-square-foot building — about 22,000 square feet — will be library services, including community meeting rooms and study rooms, plus the podcasting room, where people can create and edit audio and video.
The conference center area would have video and audio capability, plus a catering kitchen, so it could be used for corporate retreats and other events.
"If people wanted to hold weddings, this could be a wedding venue, because we also will have an outdoor performing area," Albanese said. "... Not only could it be used by community groups, nonprofits, but we could also rent it out and build revenue."
The planned micro-market would likely have a coffee machine, plus some bakery goods and refrigerated food brought in by a vendor, so that the market could be operated by a single cashier, Albanese said.
The library's wide front porch would have a seating area. The idea, Albanese said, is that "everybody's going to sit on it and communicate and connect. ... It's an area to engage."
It will also allow people who are attending conferences at the conference center to have a space where they can sit and relax for a few minutes, she said.
Sullivan said the community will benefit from having a full-size library on State Road 100.
"When we built the original library over on Palm Coast Parkway, there were probably less than 50,000 people in the county. We're now approaching 120,000," he said. "We've got a north part of the county and kind of a south part of the county here, where there's tremendous growth along [State Road] 100. It's just time."
He noted that the Sheriff's Operations Center is under construction across the road, and the county is slated to receive millions of dollars in state funding to extend Commerce Parkway west to U.S. 1.
Adding the library on Commerce Parkway, he said, "makes a lot of sense, just for general growth."
The current library branch on Palm Coast Parkway gets about 200,000 visitors annually, and digital resource use pushes that number over 400,000, Albanese said.
The Palm Coast branch has a collection of about 120,000 books and other media items, while the existing Bunnell branch has had about 20,000. The county hopes to open the new Bunnell branch location with about 40,000 to 50,000, Albanese said.
