Library will move to Wire Park
BY: Michael Prochaska
The Oconee Library Advisory Board on Monday voted 9-2 in favor of mixed-use development Wire Park as the future location of the Oconee County Library.
Within the next few years, the library will move to an existing 25,000-square-foot building at the 60-acre site off Barnett Shoals Road.
Members Rubielen Norris and Rachel Watson cast the nay votes.
“We are to represent all of the citizens of Oconee County,” said Norris. “The other location (at the intersection of North Main Street and Macon Highway) is better suited for the rest of the county.”
Watson said the library would be in a better position to resolve any particular conflicts that may arise with the county than a private developer. She also questioned what would happen if Wire Park “went south. ”
Member Michael Eddy, who is also the principal of Malcom Bridge Middle School, was one of the nine people who voted in favor of Wire Park. He said part of the goal for the library is to contribute toward a community hub. He said the future county administrative building would not be a hub.
Member Jonathan Kirkpatrick, a resident of Watkinsville, thanked the approximately 100 citizen comments, which he noted were “overwhelmingly in favor of Wire Park.”
Kirkpatrick said one of those letters was an endorsement from the Friends of Oconee County Library, the independent fundraising arm of the library.
Kirkpatrick read a letter from someone who hasn’t visited a library in a long time but said Wire Park would provide “an absolutely amazing atmosphere to grab a coffee and go to the library in one spot.”
“This is generating excitement,” said Kirkpatrick. “People who haven’t been to a library in years would go to Wire Park, because it is something different … If we put the library in Wire Park, that’s going to make us visionary. It’s going to give us something unique that nobody else has.”
Wire Park, located next to LAD Trucking, contains a primarily building of 200,000 square feet that is broken up into 34 different spaces. About half that space will be retail and restaurant surrounding the courtyard. Gibbs said he expects that area, dubbed “The Market Place,” will contain four to five restaurants, a coffee shop, an ice cream shop and boutique spaces.”
The perimeter of Wire Park will include office and warehouse use. Gibbs is expecting some technology companies to operate out of Wire Park.
Gibbs said October is the tentative grand opening for The Market Place. And the future condominiums that will be built on the premises will break ground mid-summer of this year with a goal of opening in the spring of 2022. The development calls for 130 residential units. He said the timeline for the library depends on the schedule of the Athens Regional Library System
For more on this story, see the Jan. 28 edition of The Oconee Enterprise, on sale now at convenience stores and grocery stores and newspaper boxes throughout Oconee County. To subscribe, call (706) 769-5175 or visit the tab on our website.