Wollongong City Council has been unable to find a suitable architect to design its new $10.3 million district library at Warrawong.
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In a report to next week's council meeting, staff have advised councillors to reject all tenders submitted from firms hoping to become the major project's "principal design consultant".
They said that none of the five tenders received were "acceptable for the reason that the tender documentation submitted was incomplete or significantly exceeded the tender budget estimate".
Instead, council officers say General Manager Greg Doyle should be given the power to negotiate directly with architecture companies to finalise the library design contract.
The designs are due to be placed on public exhibition in the first quarter of 2020, according to the council's website.
The Warrawong library is one of the biggest community building projects being undertaken by the council over the next three years.
It has been in the works since 1998, when a social needs analysis identified that a district level centre was required for Wollongong's southern suburbs.
In 2007, Warrawong was selected as the best location as it was considered to be the "regional commercial and service centre" as well as a transport hub, for the south-east of Wollongong.
The new building will be located at the corner of King Street and Greene Street, diagonally opposite Warrawong Plaza.
According to property records, the council does not yet own all the land where it intends to build the library. In June, it bought the property at 54 King Street for $1.1 million.
Earlier this year, the council spoke to hundreds of residents about what they hoped to see in the new facility. These comments will be used by the architect to come up with the concept design, the council said.
Some of the ideas put forward include a fountain at the front of the building, an artwork on the ceiling saying "community", a sign welcoming LGBTQI people and "Harry Potter" sliding ladders.
A cafe, meeting rooms, gym, art spaces, prayer rooms, healthy vending machine and catering spaces and a community kitchen were also on people's wishlist.
Wollongong Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said the failure to find a suitable architect through the council's usual tender process would not delay to long-running project, as the council was still in negotiations to consolidate it's chosen site.
He said it had lined up the acquisition of five sites along King Street, but was still in negotiations over others.
"We do have to powers to compulsorily acquire these sites if we need to, but we would hope it doesn't come to that," he said.
Once that was sorted, he said the chosen architect would be given the community feedback to develop into a concept design.
"Libraries these days are not just about books," he said.
"They are learning spaces, community spaces and meeting spaces so we want to incorpirate all that into the building."