Huge Win for District 1 and West Escambia Residents with the Grand Opening of the Bellview Library!

Bellview Library grand opening and ribbon cutting event--9-16-2022

Yesterday was a great day.  One of those days when everyone is happy, the atmosphere is festive, and the event is a massive, positive win for a community!  That's what the day felt like as we celebrated--- with over 300 residents, students, elected officials, Escambia County Public Schools personnel, Escambia County personnel, and various media outlets---the grand opening and ribbon cutting of District 1's first public library in Bellview.

Bellview Library grand opening and ribbon cutting event--9-16-2022

The Bellview Library, at a little over 12,000 sf, is a striking facility visually.  As I said during my brief remarks prior to the ribbon cutting--some will like the design and color scheme--others won't.  I can tell you this though:  The folks on hand, particularly the senior citizens and the students, were extremely impressed with the way the library came together and thrilled to have a new location for  books, media, internet access, and a meeting space all together under one roof in a clean, modern, and safe west side facility. 

So many people worked so hard to make this day possible--and I tried my best to recognize all of them that were present.  I thanked the assembled citizens as I told them one simple fact:  It is THEIR library, they paid for it with their tax dollars.

All media outlets were present and covered this groundbreaking--which I appreciated.  I'm also greatly appreciative of WEAR channel 3 for running multiple stories about the grand opening prior to yesterday, which I believe combined with CMR's efforts within the county drove the massive turnout.  At one point, I was even told we had exceeded fire code capacity!

See the media coverage here, here, here, and here.

I look forward to all the ways this facility will improve the community by imparting knowledge to the citizens, youth, and students of the west side of the county.  Making communities better requires local governments to provide great amenities and infrastructure.  As the neighborhoods and communities accumulate such amenities (both publicly and privately funded)--such neighborhoods and communities improve.  And as the communities go---so goes the local public schools.

So I anticipate this facility will help our students, families and schools in this area.  That is my optimistic outlook.  

Yes, it was a great day yesterday.  The first of many more to come.  😀  See additional photos of yesterday's event, below.

SEE ADDITIONAL PHOTOS BY CLICKING "READ MORE" BELOW

Agonizing, Delayed Final Stretch for the Bellview Library Project.....

The Construction of the Bellview Library--District 1's First Public Library--has been beset with calamaties from day 1 to present which will push back the opening to late summer.  But we are now, thankfully, entering the home stretch in the process......

Earlier this afternoon I had the opportunity to tour our currently-under-construction, newest area libray, the soon to open Bellview Library.

Driving by the site, I had seen some progress ----but I had the lingering impression that the project was not progressing as it should.  Come to find out, I was right.  More on that, below.

So with this as the backdrop of my concern(s)--our office scheduled a site visit and walkthrough at the construction site and we brought in and included the project construction superintendent, the project architects from STOA, the county's project management team, the library services director, Administrator Moreno, and Asst. Administrators Hall and Bowers.  It was an all hands on deck evolution today.  And here's what we found out:

This project is months behind schedule, and more than likely several months away from completion.  If I had to guess--I'd say by the looks of it---- it will be a September or even October rather than a July grand opening.  This is disappointing for a number of reasons, but there are some explanations as to why this project is so far behind that were described by the folks assembled at the site meeting today.

Theft and property burglaries have been a recurrent theme.  "We've been robbed 7 times in the last 6 months on this jobsite!" explained job superintendent Brad.  He continued--"They've stolen tools, broken into storage lockers that had been double-bolted, they've stolen some high-dollar metal products we need for the next steps in the construction along with some tubing they probably thought was copper but that wasn't -- it was lengths of HVAC drain tubing that had a long lead time to order--so that has set us back."   I asked him point blank:  "How much in materials have these thieves made off with?"  To which he replied "The tools were $10K, the metals and other products from one of our subs was more than $15K--but more important than the costs of the materials stolen is the lead time in getting some of these specialized products, and so now we have to wait to finish until we get re-supplied."  he said in an exasperated tone.

Another issue that apparently was a problem was nobody had decided on what type of door to use for an emergency egress point that was found to be necessary during construction.  "Who decides?"  I asked--to which several looked at me for an answer.  So I quickly determined (by asking staff) what door we needed (which will be a $33,000.00 change order the library board will be funding)--and I said "Okay--there's the decision--get that one, the one Todd (Humble) wants."  And the decision got made on the spot.

So there have been construction delays, difficulty getting some odd-shaped windows, difficulty getting the right doors (due to supply chain issues) and we earlier had issues with stormwater and getting the appropriate sized drain lines funded.  Prior to all of this we had several revisions to our plans based on sonme site condition anomolies and other issues.   Then we had COVID and the resulting issues that brought forth. So we are now through with a lot of these problems, issues and setbacks.  And hopefully the visit today will provide some additional impetus on getting this project over the line.  I hope.

Because what I saw of what has been done on the inside, combined with some renderings that I was given during the visit, point to a really, really neat facility once it is finished.  I mean, it will have some really great amenities for the residents, students, and citizens who will utilize this library.

From multiple large meeting rooms, to state of the art computers and video games, to 3-D printers and maker space, to lots of digital media available for checkout from vending machines onsite, to the latest, most recent fiction for our adult citizen users--this facility once complete will have a litte bit of something for everyone.

It's just getting it finished that's the issue now.  We're in the pipe, headed for the checkered flag--but it's an agonizing, delayed final stretch.

SEE ALL THE ADDITIONAL PHOTOS BY CLICKING "Read More" below