By Brad Devereaux
The Big Horn County Lovell Library will at least double in size if the State Loan and Investment Board approves county consensus project funding at their meeting next Thursday, Dec. 11.


The Lovell Library addition project of $337,410 is one of many Big Horn County projects recently submitted to the SLIB for approval. The mayors of the towns of Big Horn County approved the project for submission to the county and the SLIB at a Nov. 14 meeting.


County Commissioner Keith Grant said he is sure the project will be funded. After the funds are in place, an architect will begin on drawings for the addition and Grant said groundbreaking will be in the spring of 2009. The Lovell Library Board, County Commissioner Scotty Hinman and Grant are in full agreement about the need for the addition, Grant said.


The current library is about 2,400 square feet, Grant said. The size of the empty lot would allow for a two-story 4,800-square-foot addition, but he said the size of the addition has yet to be determined. He said the addition should at least double the space of the current structure and could be one or two stories, depending on funding.


He said if the addition brings the building to more than 5,000 square feet, then either an expensive sprinkler system would have to be installed or a firewall would have to be built between the existing structure and the addition.


Grant said John Schneider of 5J Construction is working on an estimate of what could be built for the amount of funds to be awarded.


The addition will be built on county-owned land adjacent to the library on the west side. Grant said he has asked some of the librarians who work at the Lovell Library to draw some ideas for the addition to give the architect some direction.