Developers who want to transform Bellevue Center mall into an outdoor shopping center have missed another – and apparently final – deadline to qualify for $12 million in city tax breaks they would have received for providing space for a new public library.

Now city officials are moving forward with what Metro Councilman Bo Mitchell calls “plan B” and are beginning a search for an alternative location for a new 25,000-square-foot Bellevue branch library.

“We simply cannot wait and wait and wait. This has drug on several years and it needs to come to a conclusion,” Metro Finance Director Rich Riebeling says. “The developers have done a great job and made progress, but they still do not have the financing.”

“Nothing against the developers, it’s just a ways off and we need to get the library built,” Riebeling says.

The developers missed two previous deadlines to line up their financing and qualify for the tax breaks, but each time the city agreed to give them more time. This time, after the developers could not hit a Feb. 28 deadline and asked for another extension, the answer was no, Mitchell says.

Chicago-based Inland Western Real Estate Trust has proposed tearing down the existing indoor mall and replacing it with an outdoor shopping center and restaurants. Inland recently was joined by a local company, Brentwood-based GBT Realty Corp.

Late last year, the two companies announced an anticipated beginning date for construction of mid-2011, with completion slated for early 2013. A spokesman for the developers was not available for comment on recent developments.

Mitchell says he believes the developers are committed to redeveloping the mall and may find another way to qualify for Metro tax breaks by including a “public benefit” other than a library.

“Don’t take that as a death knell for the mall’s redevelopment,” Mitchell says.

Bellevue Center, located near the Highway 70-Interstate 40 interchange in Bellevue, has been nearly vacant since 2008. Sears is the only remaining department store. Metro police have used the empty interior of the mall for training exercises.

With the library no longer tied to the mall’s redevelopment, Metro officials are beginning the process of identifying an alternative site. The single-story library, more than four times the size of the existing Bellevue branch library, will require about five acres and could be located along either Highway 70 or Highway 100, Mitchell says. At his request, the city previously set aside $1 million to begin that process in case Inland did not qualify for the tax breaks.

Money for construction of the new library should be included in the city budget for next year, which begins July 1. “We’re probably talking $7 million,” Mitchell says.

“The main pre-requisite (for a site) is a good spot,” he says, “an attractive spot.”