Jackson County commissioners and the Town of Sylva appointed representatives to the newest library task force and tapped local architect Odell Thompson to serve as site review manager at their first joint meeting Feb. 3.

Commissioners appointed Joe Cowman to fill the county’s open task force seat, completing the trifecta of Chairman Stacy Buchanan and County Manager Ken Westmoreland. Town board member Maurice Moody was selected to join Mayor Brenda Oliver and Town Manager Richard McHargue as Sylva’s three representatives.

The task force was created after commissioners’ unanimous Jan. 13 decision to put any plans for building a library on hold, appoint a task force of elected officials and reinvestigate building a library independent of the proposed joint-facility with Southwestern Community College.

The joint-facility drew criticism for its location outside of the downtown Sylva business district, even though it could be larger and cheaper than one the county could build on its own. The task force is specifically charged with locating and evaluating land on which to potentially build a new county library facility, most likely closer to downtown than the SCC site.

With hopes of accurately judging the pros and cons of each site — from the courthouse grounds to a lot owned by Sylva Herald publisher Jim Gray, the current library site on Main Street to Jackson Plaza — task force members selected architect Odell Thompson to serve as an advisor.

Thompson, responsible for the renovation of the Hooper House and design of The Oaks restaurant in Whittier, worked with previous library task forces, sketching a possible building design for the Jim Gray lot.

The lot is located between Scotts Creek and Railroad Avenue next to Lifeway Community Church. Going price is approximately $400,000, Thompson said.

Because the lot is in the Scotts Creek flood plain, any structure erected on the lot would have to be elevated, placing parking on the lower level. The actual building would rest at about street level with the possibility of a town plaza serving as the entryway, Thompson said.

Similar sketches paired with briefs on each potential build site could be provided with designs specifically geared to the sites’ strengths and weaknesses.

“I could specify what might be called an outline specification/description of the building,” Thompson said.

The visual illustrations might help task force members, and the public, decide which location would best serve the community. For example, while one site might be more financially expensive, it may better evoke the sense of place necessary for such an integral institution, Thompson said.

With that same concept in mind, Build Our Library Downtown (BOLD) members have suggested building a library on the courthouse site, a process that would involve the removal of the old county jail and Department of Motor Vehicles.

A library on that site would most likely be partially sunk into the earth, with the second floor actually serving as the entry level. A walkway between the courthouse and the library would allow for shared facilities such as meeting space with the proposed historical museum in the courthouse and the library, Thompson said.

But Thompson said that he alone could not provide the task force with an accurate cost estimate of any library, built on any site. Such an estimate would best come from a contractor who could assign a cost to Thompson’s designs.

“We only have so many dollars and we want each dollar to have as much impact as possible,” Thompson said.