The campaign to build a new Eudora Public Library is ramping up with the naming of former Eudora school superintendent Don Grosdidier as campaign chair for a fundraising drive and any campaign in support of a bond issue that may follow. Meanwhile, the library is planning informational townhall meetings starting next month regarding the new library. The plan is to build a new 10,000- to 12,000-square-foot building across Ninth Street from the existing library.

The Eudora Public Library has tapped someone familiar with leading successful community campaigns to head fundraising efforts for a new library.

Carol Wohford, Eudora library director, said former Eudora school district superintendent Don Grosdidier has been selected to chair a steering committee charged with raising money for the construction of a new library with an estimated price tag of $3 million. The announcement comes as the library has quietly started soliciting donations for a new library and plans are being made for a more public fundraising campaign that will start next year.

Fundraising currently is in a “quiet” stage of approaching a number of large donors for contributions, Wohford said. It’s part of a step-by-step approach to raising the $500,000 to $1 million that a feasibility study completed in the summer indicates could be raised through a capital campaign, she said.

The fundraising efforts will become much more public with the start of a broader public fundraising drive. Wohford said that would start when a quarter of the public money was raised through the quiet campaign. With the fundraising efforts cranking up, Grosdidier was named to head a steering committee to head the capital campaign.

Grosdidier, who stepped down as Eudora superintendent in June 2015, helped build support for two large community bond issues. As Eudora High School principal, he was on the campaign committee that built support for the 2003 bond issue that financed construction of Eudora High School. As assistant superintendent, he played a similar role in the 2007 campaign in support of a bond issue for the Eudora Elementary School, he said.

His role is still evolving, as is the library fundraising steering committee, which will be ran by a group whose members have not all been named yet, Grosdidier said. He was comfortable with leading the library capital campaign and approaching donors for money because he believes the community supports building a new library and understands the need, he said.

“Whether you’re trying to get votes for a bond project or asking for donations, you are selling the need as much as anything,” he said. “I think the need is great.”

He was familiar with the new library project from the district’s redevelopment of the old middle school property at 10th and Main streets. The Eudora Public Library Board purchased part of the old middle school grounds across Ninth Street from the current library as the site for a future 10,000- to 12,000-square-foot building.

Eudora residents recognize the community has outgrown the current 40-year-old, 2,500-square-foot library, which is inadequate for the service and programming its patrons demand, Grosdidier said.

As part of the multifaceted capital campaign, grants also would be explored as the library looks to whittle down as much as possible the amount of any bond financing required to build a new library, Wohford said.

“There are several grantors in the country who like to pick up the last bit of capital campaign,” she said. “We will be working with grantors. I have a thick red folder on my desk of grant possibilities.”

The library would start building awareness next month on the plans and the need for the new building. Wohford said there would be a series of town hall meetings starting this month on the new library. In conjunction with those meetings, library staff is encouraging residents to view the preliminary renderings for the new library, which Eudora architect Kurt Von Achen developed, so they can make suggestions for reconfigurations, Wohford said.

Von Achen’s initial renderings include the expected library shelving and reading areas, as well as a community room/art gallery with adjacent kitchen, children’s library, adult quiet area, small “coffee spot,” work rooms and study rooms.

The library has also started investigating the legal requirements of a bond referendum, Wohford said. The Eudora Public Library is one of the rare township libraries remaining in Kansas, and any bond issue requiring mill levy support to retire debt could require a referendum of Eudora Township voters.

Wohford said it would be a year before any referendum was scheduled.

“I think if it’s 2017, it would be late in the year,” she said. “At the very least, it would be 2018. We’re not going to continue a capital campaign past 12 months.”