- November 20, 2024
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Officials toss shovelfuls of dirt at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Flagler County Nexus Center. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Holly Albanese, Flagler County assistant administrator and library director, speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Flagler County Nexus Center, which is slated to be completed by Oct. 1, 2025. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Flagler County Commission Chair Andy Dance. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Jim Ulsamer, chairman of the Flagler County Public Library Board of Trustees. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Lon Neuman, operations manager for Ajax Building Corporation. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Sign on the site of the Flagler County Nexus Center with an artist's rendering a breakdown of the project's funding sources. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Holly Albanese opened the groundbreaking ceremony on Aug. 12 for the Flagler County Nexus Center by saying her speech would not be short. Since she is Flagler County’s library director, in addition to its assistant administrator, she described herself as a story teller. And she had quite a story to tell.
She spent nine years making the project to build the future library and Health and Human Services facility a reality and she would spend a minute for each of those years talking about the $16 million multipurpose center, which is due to be completed on Oct. 1, 2025.
Actually, she could have talked for another 10 minutes, because “in reality I’ve been planning for this for 19 years,” she said.
As Albanese and the other speakers took their turns at the microphone prior to the groundbreaking, bulldozers and dump trucks full of dirt roared by. The groundbreaking ceremony was originally scheduled for a week earlier but was postponed because of heavy rains in the forecast caused by Hurricane Debby. The pre-construction work started a few days later.
The 5-acre site for the 23,000-square-foot center is just north of the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office Operations Center on Commerce Parkway. It replaces the Bunnell Library Branch but will include many more services, including the Health and Human Services wing; a library lobby with high ceilings and a micromarket with prepackaged food items and drinks; and a state-of-the-art conference center with a caterer’s kitchen. The conference center will hold 325 people and, among other functions, will serve as the county’s senior congregate meal site.
There will be a canopy outside the library entrance with tables where people can sit and read a book.
Albanese said the name Nexus Center was AI-generated after descriptor words such as library, innovation, technology and community were typed in. Nexus is a connection or link. Center is a central point offering a coming together. The Nexus Center will be “many things for many people,” she said.
Health and Human Services will have a separate entrance and will include a reception area, consultation rooms, offices and a 25-person meeting room.
The conference center can be divided by a movable wall allowing for two events to occur at the same time. On the WNZF radio show, “Free For All Friday,” earlier this month, Albanese said that while the meeting room at the Main Library Branch in Palm Coast can serve only non-profits or government organizations, the conference center at the Nexus Center will be available to be rented out for “corporate retreats, job fairs, even weddings,” with the “pre-function lobby” serving as a gathering area.
The library itself will have an innovative lab, where coding clubs can meet, computer classes can be held and 3D printing can be done. There will be a podcast room that students can use to do a podcast for a class assignment. There will be a drive-thru window and a passport office. The youth services department, she said at the ceremony, will feature “a wall that curves like a wave on the beach.”
The adult area will have computers, seating and a view behind the building of “natural surroundings” and a planned site for an amphitheater.
This is the right building at the right time in the right place for all of us in Flagler County.”
— JIM ULSAMER, Library Board of Trustees chairman.
“This is the right building at the right time in the right place for all of us in Flagler County,” said Jim Ulsamer, the Library Board of Trustees chairman.
Albanese secured over $5 million in state grants to fund the facility. The county is providing $9.1 million from its general fund and $750,000 from library impact fees. Albanese said $1.1 million is coming out of the library’s $1.4 million of passport revenue.
Years ago, she said, when she asked the county commission for money she was told to find it. “I found it (by starting) the passport program,” she said.
Albanese said the state turned down grants for the project seven times since 2015, including one governor’s veto before an $800,000 Florida Division of Emergency Management disaster recovery grant was approved to cover costs for “Code Plus” design and construction elements. In 2023, a $500,000 state library construction grant was approved. In late January of this year, the project was awarded a Florida Office of Commerce broadband grant of $4 million.
At that point, Albanese said, she finally felt the Nexus Center would come to fruition.
“We would not be here today without the work from Ms. Albanese writing up all the grants,” Flagler County Commission Chair Andy Dance said.
“The grants are a testament that this project is needed,” he said.
Architect Ruffin Rhodes said this has been one of the longest projects his firm of Rhodes + Brito has been involved with. “What has fueled us,” he said, “is Holly’s passion.”
Lon Neuman the operations manager for Ajax Building Corporations ended the ceremony by announcing to county and city of Bunnell officials and Friends of the Library members that it was time to “move some dirt.”
Albanese used a special shovel for the groundbreaking, one that was used 25 years ago for the groundbreaking for the Main Library Branch.
