The trials of library property acquisition

Citation

Holt, G. (2000), "The trials of library property acquisition", The Bottom Line, Vol. 13 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/bl.2000.17013cab.001

The trials of library property acquisition

Keywords Real estate, Land, Purchasing, Buildings, Terms and conditions, Libraries

For the past decade, my staff and I have experienced the trials of property acquisition in order to build new or redevelop a dozen old libraries. These real estate purchases have ranged in price from $3,000 to over $5 million. Along the way, we have learned much about acquiring library real estate. Here are some suggestions for dealing with some important property acquisition issues.

Seek a property giftIf you do not have enough money to buy a good library site, try and get somebody to give you one. Through the years, local owners have donated many St Louis Public Library branch sites. One recent example: after months of searching for a site for a 15,000 square-foot branch to replace one of 2,000 square feet, a management staff member confessed our discouragement to a bank executive for whom he had worked for before becoming a library employee. Our staff member told the executive that the only sites we had found were outrageously expensive. He asked whether the executive knew of any reasonably priced site that met our requirements? In a few days, the executive called back to ask, "How would you like to be located next to our North Side branch bank?" The resulting conversations brought us the gift of a vacant lot appraised at $87,000.

The bank had been holding this lot in order to increase parking. We built our new branch on the front of the lot with a one-way, single-car-wide entrance between the two buildings, leading to a shared parking lot behind. Both institutions gained customers. The bank's gift was the foundation for the bank and the library becoming a joint community destination. The successful reality is demonstrated in the several trips where both the bank and library are visited in a single shopping/service trip.

Share buildings with othersLots of library systems have found co-tenancy a successful real estate acquisitions policy. The Las Vegas, Hennepin County (Minnesota) and Toronto systems come quickly to mind as examples of those that have developed effective co-tenancy schemes. Building-sharing with an adjacent license collector's office, location at a rapid-transit-stop shopping center and co-occupancy with a theater or art gallery all serve as specific examples. This solution is hardly new. Any number of earlier libraries shared space with community offices, auditoriums and recreational centers. The solution often still works from both a functional and economic standpoint.

SLPL's particular example of co-tenancy is with a parking garage. In one of our comeback neighborhoods, filled with expensive commercial space and historic buildings, we agreed to become the principal first-floor tenant in a new, three-storey, 400-car-parking garage. To get this space, we became the owner of a 25,000-square-foot commercial condominium space. The builder furnished us with "a white box". We will be responsible for building the interior. In the end, we will have a modern branch library in a new building in a dynamic neighborhood for less than the price that we could have developed an outstanding location on our own. And we will have plenty of parking.

Buy more land than you think you needIn this strategy, you will be doing your system a future favor by not scrimping when you purchase a lot that at first seems too large. Parking will be a major site use. In St Louis, our transaction records indicate that about 15-25 percent of each of our branch unit's business comes from persons who do not live in the neighborhood. The figure is even higher for regional branches and the Central Library. Those who arrive by automobile want close-by parking. Government-required landscaping, fencing, sidewalks and/or watercourse protection, plus a myriad other site requirements, will eat into your lot area in ways difficult to contemplate early in a project.

More importantly, there are the internal space requirements. Half-a-dozen recent books on library space planning all make a common point: your space needs will expand. If use grows, collection areas may have to expand. As we gain more experience with electronic media, almost all of us recognize that initial space projections from the architectural profession turned out to be too low. Work tables on which library users can spread out, the need for comfortable, distributed seating, areas in which to handle queues and staff work areas that function efficiently - all these are requirements that use up space - and usually sooner than anticipated.

Post-library use also should be a consideration. Three decades ago, one library director I know added a new requirement to his site acquisitions program. He specified that every site and its building had to be projected as a salable future retail or office-building site after the library was finished with it. A few extra parking spaces or additional landscaping always prove invaluable when marketing the site a few decades after initial library construction. Compare this situation with our area-starved, neighborhood Carnegie branches built with the false assumption that users would always walk to the facility.

Plan ahead: buy big lots.

Watch out for sub-soil monstersA decade ago, I saw the footings of a museum's new library building start to crack as the cement dried. Within a couple of weeks, the building had heaved so much that it was impossible to open one of the doors. A few weeks after that, a local building inspector condemned the building. A few months after that, the building was razed without ever being used. All these problems came as a result of constructing an inexpensive library building without appropriate foundations on unsettled-and-uncompacted land fill.For libraries located on sites without previous construction on them, loose or "rotten" soil, buried asbestos and lead-painted boards, along with previously unrecognized watercourses, may add many dollars to building costs. SLPL's 1912 Central Library, for example, has a spring in its sub-basement that was wholly unknown when construction began.My favorite cocktail party story about sub-soil monsters is "striking oil" on the third back-hoe shovel of dirt removed to lay a new branch foundation. The problem was both simple and expensive. When the building was demolished, rubble was pushed into a basement where a 500-gallon heating oil tank was smashed in the tear-down process. The "spill" required the removal of more than 40 cubic yards of oil-impregnated earth, all of which had to be bagged and moved to a hazardous-waste site.

Watch for easementsEasements are delegated rights that are placed upon real estate. Anyone who is involved in purchasing numerous buildings sooner or later runs into easements. One example: decades ago our regional electric company purchased a three-foot-wide easement adjacent to a small store. When the library cleared six stores to increase the size of a branch facility and add parking, no one even remembered the easement. Some negotiations, a few thousand dollars and several weeks later, the easement was gone.

Relationship to other system facilitiesAnyone who looks at a map of older library systems sees easily that not all site acquisition has been accomplished without the involvement of political and socio-economic issues. Most of us can name system after system in which elected officials and various kinds of pressure groups determined the site of particular libraries and the "over-branching" of library systems. Dealing with political and economic realities in site selection remains a difficult problem in the life of every library. There is no easy solution for success here. Library site acquisition in such a setting is as complex as the reasons for erecting a new building or rehabbing an old one.

Seek busy commercial locationsIn an earlier time in most older US cities, library leaders sought to put most buildings in parks or at least on residential neighborhood streets. This policy still receives wide endorsement from those who cite the "ownership" of the numerous bands of patrons who use such sites. The difficulty of such locations is that they do not meet the realities of current social and economic life.

SLPL transaction statistics demonstrate the mobility of even the poorest of our city's families. Mothers return books at one branch on their way to their job, and fathers check out videos from a second location on their way home. Children do their homework at a third branch, and they check out materials from a fourth branch during their school visits. Of course, library systems have to consider the relative lack of mobility of poor families, especially poor children, in selecting library sites. However, family mobility during the workday, to work, shop and for recreation, are powerful forces that need to be considered as well. Much of a library's success is based on convenience and accessibility just like retail and service businesses. Library systems need to consider journey-to-work data just like retailers and other service businesses.

Purchase what you can affordIn SLPL's career as a library redeveloper and builder, we have been approached many times by owners and agents who want to sell us more building than we need. In one case, a developer proposed installing one of our branches in a building twice the size we needed. Moreover, he wanted us to provide all the money for construction and manage the condominium properties and the private parking after the units were sold. We did buy a commercial rental property as an addition to our Central Library. In this case, unlike the first one, the economics made sense.

Use the legal authority at your disposalA continuing problem that SLPL has faced in acquiring property is that owners expect library folks to be so wealthy and so stupid that they will pay for the owner's entire retirement in the sale of one lot. Negotiations with such owners usually begin with statements like "This property is not for sale at any price" or "I was just ready to develop this lot myself and you'll have to pay me the same as if I had developed it." My library has used every legal strategy available to us when we acquire property. A thorough "friendly" appraisal usually takes the asking price down. A delay in making another offer often has the same effect. The most powerful tool, however, is eminent domain. This is the right of a public agency to take private property for use of a greater public good. SLPL does not have the right of eminent domain, but our city government can use its right for the benefit of the library. This authority has proven a powerful incentive for real estate owners to come to the table and bargain fairly in library real estate negotiations.

Hire experts to help youLibraries usually need several kinds of experts to help them with property acquisitions. Real estate agents are useful, especially when they can acquire property for the library without the library being directly involved. A good appraisal team tends to bring price reality to the transaction, especially if the library is involved with an owner who starts off by using a high appraisal as a weapon in the negotiation. And, of course, as it does with almost all of its other operations, the library needs a good lawyer who is involved in the transaction from its inception to avoid contractual misunderstandings and later expensive legal actions.

Everything takes longerDelay is the bane of public sector agencies and delay is part of acquiring real estate. It takes longer to get an appraisal, write a contract, or clear a site than anyone thought at the outset. This is why it is a good idea to do real estate acquisition quietly and under protection of board executive sessions if such a law exists in your political subdivision. Anticipate acquisition delays in project planning. Anticipate answering press questions about delays when the library is involved in any property acquisition.

Public library users, like library boards, love bricks and mortar as a mechanism to demonstrate good service and system progress. Real estate acquisitions that are part of such projects need to be well considered and tightly structured to guarantee that special problems are not caused in the library building program. Well handled library real estate acquisitions should cause no more problems than those merited by the symbolic importance of library structures in the civic landscape.

Glen HoltExecutive Director of the St Louis Public Library