Northern Wyoming News - Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years

WORLAND — The Washakie County commissioners, Washakie County Library staff and board members, along with the Friends of the Worland Library and concerned citizens met TSP architect, Mark Averett of Sheridan, along with two other architects on the phone Wednesday, June 12, to discuss the possible layout of the Washakie County Library being housed in the Kennedy Ace building at 801 Big Horn Avenue.

Washakie County Commission Chairman Fred Frandson said in an earlier interview, “In order to complete due diligence and fully understand the potential costs associated with a purchase and remodel [of the Kennedy building] Washakie County has hired TSP to do a conceptual design and cost analysis prior to finalizing a purchase agreement.”

Kennedy Ace co-owner Gerry Kennedy stated to the Northern Wyoming News that they reached a verbal agreement to purchase the former Shopko building.

The Washakie County Library in Worland has been slated to either build a new building, renovate the existing building, attach to an existing building or renovate a new building for many years.

The library received funding through the one cent tax from 2008 - 2012. The tax generated the library $1 million which was originally intended to build a new facility but the cost of a new facility is much more than the $1 million. “There’s been architecture done before to do a brand new stand-alone facility, there was architecture done to attach a facility to the community center (Worland Community Center Complex) and the issue that we ran into is that the cost of the stand-alone facility and the cost of attaching onto the community center is really high which makes it very difficult to get anything done,” Commissioner Aaron Anderson said at an earlier meeting.

During the June 12, meeting, TSP asked all present a range of questions about what was absolutely needed and what was just wanted. One of the things that Washakie County Library Director Karen Funk stated was a need was a computer lab. She stated that other than the schools there is no computer lab in the area and as a public library a computer lab would be beneficial to area residents and any classes which could be offered. She stated that the library has lost out on events which would have been beneficial to community members due to a lack of a computer lab.

Towards the end of the meeting, the discussion turned to the second story of part of the building. Funk expressed a concern about library staff having to deal with stairs because most of the staff is getting older and stairs could become an issue. Washakie County Commissioner Aaron Anderson stated that there is a freight elevator in the building but it was not usable for humans. He added that the cost of a an elevator for people would use up too much of the money slated for the library. It was decided that TSP should only work on designing a layout for the first story and that the second story could be used for storage.

TSP stated that they should have conceptual plans in a couple weeks and that the plans, space program (spaces needed for special rooms and meeting areas) and budget numbers should be available in four to six weeks.