WCLS hires architects for Birch Bay library

Marking a major milestone toward a permanent library in Birch Bay, the Whatcom County Library System (WCLS) entered into a contract agreement with Osborn Architects Inc. to begin the construction design process for the new Birch Bay Vogt Library Express.

The contract was signed in early April, according to WCLS deputy director Michael Cox, and shows signs of progress in the now years-long process of creating more robust library services for Whatcom County’s fourth-largest community.

WCLS plans to hold a community meeting on the upcoming construction and design plans this spring, Cox said, and will release more information in the coming weeks. Representatives from Osborn Architects will present early mock-ups of the interior of the library to the public at the meeting.

The library is expected to open in 2025, Cox said.

“We realized that the population, particularly the growth rate in that part of the county, combined with the usage, demonstrate the need,” he said. “They’re using Blaine, Lynden, Ferndale libraries and we saw that this group of people were really strong library users.”

WCLS originally planned to turn the entire 7,600-square-foot Vogt family homestead into a full-service library, which would have cost $6.5 million, according to past reporting from The Northern Light. That plan required creating a taxing district to raise $4 million for the project, but voters twice rejected the plan in the November 2021 and February 2022 elections. The February ballot was just 26 votes shy of the required 60 percent supermajority.

Currently, Birch Bay is only served by WCLS’s “bookmobile,” a truck/library hybrid that parks on the Vogt home lawn for a few hours every week.

“We were really close, we had a majority of support from the community, but we didn’t have what we needed,” Cox said. “We didn’t want that to stop our forward progress … we really believe that the library we’re putting in place is going to be able to provide a great level of library service.”

A new plan from the WCLS Board of Trustees to create 1,700 square feet for the library was presented and accepted by the state legislature in April 2023, bringing $2 million in grant funding for the library.

WCLS raised $315,000 in funding from Whatcom County through the American Rescue Plan Act, and lobbied the state legislature for a $2 million grant for the future library express, but Cox said construction costs are likely to continue to rise before renovations begin.

“There’s been quite a bit of inflation and those numbers can fluctuate based on the changing costs of construction materials,” Cox said. “We are actually still in fundraising mode because we expect our cost estimates to have increased.”

For more information on the Birch Bay Vogt Library Express, visit https://bit.ly/4cOkZj3.