When Howard County Executive Calvin Ball announced plans for a stunning new library along Columbia‘s lakefront, he called the project “a giant leap for our future.” But two years later, the project seems to be moving ahead in baby steps.

The state committed $10 million for a new library at the lakefront location, and the Howard Hughes Corp. agreed to build it on land that it owned overlooking Lake Kittamaqundi. But the project has stalled amid questions about the county’s acquisition of the land, as well as concerns about cost, parking and even whether the lakefront is the best location for a library.

The lack of movement has frustrated some County Council members.

“To me, I feel like we’re having the same conversation over and over again,” County Council Chair Liz Walsh said at a recent capital budget work session.

Walsh said the delays stem from Howard Hughes, the Texas developer that owns much of downtown Columbia. She wants the county to own the lakefront property where the proposed library would be built.

“The holdup is the exclusivity of Howard Hughes,” Walsh said by phone Wednesday. “They have ownership of the land, and until they relinquish that, they have complete control of the conversation.”

In response to questions, including whether Howard Hughes would sell the lakefront property to the county, a spokesperson said: “We look forward to continuing to work alongside the county to realize a new library for the region. We remain committed to the continued fulfillment of the Downtown Columbia plan.”

County Executive Calvin Ball, accompanied by Gov. Wes Moore, announced plans for the $144 million Columbia lakefront library in March 2023. Moore said the glassy structure would be “a shining jewel for this country and this world.”

Not everyone was thrilled. Some residents called it a waste of taxpayer money, arguing the county should direct more resources to the school system and local hospital.

They also raised concerns about transparency after it was announced that Howard Hughes had been named the library’s developer without a competitive bidding process.

“The cleanest, most straightforward thing seems to be to just sell the land” to the county, Councilwoman Christiana Rigby said. “We would like to pay fair market value for this land and then everybody could move forward.”

Ball is eager to keep the process moving. In his March capital budget proposal, he suggested turning $5 million of designated state funds over to the library for continued planning and design efforts.

“The County Executive would like to secure a site for the Central Branch replacement, which will enable the County and [the library system] to do a more comprehensive design, programming model, and cost estimate of the project,” said Safa Hira, a county government spokeswoman, in an email.

In May 2023, the council unanimously approved an amendment that locked in $10 million from the state for the central library process. The amendment said the funds could only be accessed in two allocations of $5 million each, provided there was a public engagement process, a developer selected through competitive bidding and an effort to find other funding sources.

The state funds, however, are tied to the lakefront site only, Hira said. If a different location is chosen, the county cannot access the $10 million.

The county has engaged with the community through information sessions and a survey of 1,500 residents, though Walsh called the survey “deeply flawed.”

County Council member David Yungmann said the survey responses only represented “four tenths of a percent of the county population,” but that most respondents wanted the central library to be rebuilt at its existing spot nearby off Little Patuxent Parkway.

“I don’t understand how we got here … why are we still talking about the lakefront site?” Yungmann asked.

Kristi Smith, Maryland region president for Howard Hughes, said of the library at the work session in April: “We want it to be iconic, of quality design, to be this civic anchor for the community. The lakefront is the best spot for that, but we want to make sure it lives up to that iconic vision.”

Tonya Aikens, the Howard County Library System’s president and CEO, also prefers the lakefront site.

“I firmly believe that the best public spaces should be for the community, and the opportunity to move the new Central Library to the lakefront provides those best public spaces for our residents,” Aikens said in an email.

The current 50,000-square-foot central library branch has only been renovated once since it was built in 1981, long before the internet.

“At this point,” Hira said, ”the existing central branch has exceeded its useful life and is in great need of replacement, or a major renovation."

The case for a new central library can be found in the Downtown Columbia Plan, a 30-year master plan that the council unanimously approved in 2010 and amended in 2016.

“This new library could move the Howard County Library in the direction of an ‘Experience Library,’ an intellectual, interactive learning center combining visual exhibitions with interesting architecture and typical library elements,” the downtown master plan states.

Late last year, the county hired the Maryland Economic Development Corp. to assist with planning, complete a parking analysis and identify funding options to pay for the project.

The agency this month is expected to bring “substantial information and projections” about parking revenue with a financial model to follow, said Katie Parks, its director of community development, at the work session.

Rigby said parking issues at the lakefront location need to be addressed.

“You have to figure out the parking in a way that does not mean we’re using public taxpayer dollars on private temporary car storage,” Rigby said at the work session.

Rigby also said she needs to see a ”good-faith effort” to jump-start a housing component for the project.

During the March 2023 announcement, Ball said the proposal would allow for mixed-income housing to be added at a dedicated location in the Merriweather District. Ball still wants to see affordable housing constructed there.

“That would show me that these are serious discussions that have positive results, that this isn’t just some sort of long delay tactic where we’re all hanging on forever and it never happens,” Rigby said.