NEWPORT — The Campbell County Library Board on Wednesday approved initial work to demolish a former supermarket building on Sixth Street that will be the site of the new $2 million Newport branch library.

        The board, through its attorney, Bob Jennings, reached agreement last month with the former owners of the building on a sale price of $675,000. The agreement came during an eminent domain hearing before a jury in Judge Leonard Kopowski's Campbell Circuit Court.

        When a new, two-level building is erected on the site — across the street from Newport High School and just below Interstate 471 — it will be three times the size of the current Newport branch located in an historic Carnegie library building at Fourth and Monmouth streets. The new branch will have 27,000 square feet, compared to the Monmouth Street building's 9,700 square feet.

        “As an example of how we will be able to grow, we now have four public access computer terminals in the Newport branch,” Campbell County Public Library Director Mike Doellman said. “At the new building, we will have 30.”

        Board President Donald Grosenbach of Cold Spring said the board began discussing the need for a larger Newport branch several years ago.

        Both the Carrico branch in Fort Thomas and the Cold Spring branch are newer and larger than the Newport facility.

        Board members approved plans to proceed immediately with removal of asbestos and other hazardous materials from the former supermarket, which in recent years was home to the I-471 Antique Mall.

        “We don't have a date yet for actual demolition,” Mr. Doellman said. “We don't know if we're going to demolish the old structure and then start building the new one, or begin work on the new building and eventually take down the old one.”

        Architect Mike Kinsella asked the board to consider making the new branch a geothermal structure, heated and cooled with the use of water from a well that would be dug on the site. Library staff members were going to Lexington to examine two library buildings there using the geothermal technique.

        “The only cost would be drilling the well,” Mr. Kinsella said. “The water would be a constant 55 degrees, and you use the power of the water to either cool or heat the building, then return the water to the ground. In other areas it has saved a lot of money.”

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