Library service for northeast Johnson County could undergo radical changes over the next five years, according to the Johnson County Library Capital Improvement Plan approved by the board. Both the Corinth Library on Mission Road in Prairie Village and the Cedar/Roe Library in Roeland Park are scheduled to be replaced under the current plan. But that plan has a lot of approval hurdles in front of it and is subject to modifications along the way.

The library capital improvement plan for the next five years contemplates funding and completion of both of the projects near the end of that five-year schedule. Each project on the capital improvement plan must be approved by a county capital improvement committee and the county commissioners and authorized as part of the budget resolution in the summer. Neither the Corinth nor Cedar/Roe projects require funding in 2014 so they have not hit the review process.

County Librarian Sean Casserley said there are no guarantees the projects will survive the review process or remain in their suggested form. If they are funded, he said, the details, such as building sites, will again be evaluated and community engagement will be a high priority in the planning.

Under the plan the present Corinth building would be demolished and replaced on its 1.8 acre site with a new library of approximately 25,000 square feet, a 23 percent increase, with a planned opening in January 2019.

Cedar/Roe, though, would be combined with the Antioch Library at a new site under the plan, also opening in 2019. Neither of the existing sites is adequate to handle the new library, according to the CIP, which will be larger than the current Antioch location. A new combined library is expected to be about 36,000 square feet.

Cedar/Roe was built in 1967 and Antioch was built in 1956. Along with Corinth, built in 1963, they are among the oldest in the library system and they all have heavy usage.

The capital improvement assessment suggests that the buildings have deficiencies that make them uneconomical to repair. Cedar/Roe also has parking and site constraints that make it unsuitable for a new library.

The Corinth replacement is now tagged more than $10 million and the Cedar/Roe – Antioch replacement more than $17 million.

The library replacement plan is rooted in the county’s Facilities Master Plan 2010-2030, which was approved in late 2009. The changes slated for northeast Johnson County are anticipated in the master plan.