A Kanawha County Public Library board member said Monday the search for a possible new main library branch site is down to two locations.
But Cheryl Crigger Morgan, head of the board's ad hoc building projects committee and former president of the full board, declined to say whether one of those two is the current main branch site, which is at the corner of Capitol and Quarrier streets in downtown Charleston.
System Director Alan Engelbert said in December the main branch locations had basically been pared down to three, with a renovation of the current branch one of the remaining three options. Other considered sites have been kept secret.
Morgan said both remaining sites are within Charleston city limits, and she hopes to provide the full board more information in March or April so it can decide how to proceed.
"We're getting closer," Morgan said. "It's been a very hardworking committee. We've demanded a lot of these folks. So we're hoping to get to a recommendation for the board soon."
She said it's up to the full board to decide whether to reveal the remaining sites under consideration.
Last February, the board approved a contract laying out an expected four-to-six-month process to prepare the board to ultimately choose either to overhaul its existing main branch location or pick a specific new site.
Jody Driggs, with Charleston-based Silling Associates, said then his firm and HBM Architects, of Cleveland, would help narrow a list of 16 to 18 possible locations to no more than six options that will be presented to the board.
Board members then would choose three possible locations or existing buildings for the consultants to do deeper, graphic "Test Fit" studies.
Driggs said in December, "Analysis of potential site opportunities has just moved a little slower than maybe we would have envisioned."
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