FAYETTEVILLE — Public library officials need more time to decide if they want to buy the former City Hospital property.
The library’s board of trustees on Monday asked library staff to let Washington Regional Medical Center know they’re still interested in the property, which lies south of the library and has been owned by Washington Regional since 2011.
No offer can be made on the vacant nursing home until library officials have a better grasp of their long-range needs.
At A Glance
Employee Raises
Also on Monday, the Fayetteville Public Library Board of Trustees decided to award library employees raises based on performance evaluations.
The raises, which will amount to 4 percent increases on average, were included in the library’s 2013 budget and will cost about $78,000.
Source: Fayetteville Public Library
“We’re in no way able to say what we would be willing to spend on that property or, in any concrete detail, what we would want to do on that property,” said David Johnson, library executive director.
Johnson said library officials won’t know more until a space needs assessment is completed this fall.
Washington Regional, in a real estate brochure, gave interested bidders until Friday to make an offer on the City Hospital property.
Other properties the hospital owns in north Fayetteville — the BrookStone Assisted Living Residence on East Longview Street and three tracts of land near the North Hills Medical Park — are also up for sale.
Gina Maddox, a spokeswoman for Washington Regional, said Monday the hospital is trying to sell “certain noncore assets” in an effort to “support and maintain (its) goal to remain the premier health care provider in the region.”
Maddox said Monday that Washington Regional hadn’t received offers on any of the properties. She added that employees and residents at the 61-bed BrookStone residence wouldn’t be impacted by a potential sale.
City Hospital, which closed in September after 100 years in Fayetteville, is one option library officials are considering as part of an update to their 20-year master plan. Johnson also has mentioned building a library branch west of Interstate 540 or adding on to the library’s 9-year-old building at Mountain Street and School Avenue.
He said the library is cramped for meeting and event space and needs more room for its nearly 300,000-item collection.
Johnson said a final draft of the space needs assessment, which is being prepared by Minneapolis-based Meyer, Scherer and Rockcastle architects, won’t be ready until October. Residents will be able to review drafts of the assessment in May and August, he added.
Maylon Rice, one of seven members of the library’s board of trustees, said giving Washington Regional a better idea of the library’s plans could buy library officials more time to consider a City Hospital purchase.
“We can’t say, ‘We’ll pay you X number of dollars for it,’” Rice said. “But if they find out that it’s the dog of all this real estate they’re offering, then they may want to put off selling it for a year or two.”
The city will have the option of buying City Hospital back from Washington Regional before any other offers are finalized. City officials were given the right of first refusal as part of a 2011 land swap between the city and Washington Regional.
The city deeded the 2.8-acre City Hospital property to Washington Regional in exchange for land where a traffic roundabout was built in front of the regional medical center.