Transcript Of Updated Library Design Presentation

The Common Council met 01/18/2023. About an hour of the meeting was taken up with an update on the updated design of the library.

I’ve prepared a transcript of both the update as well as the discussion that took place after the presentation.

As you may remember, back in September, the city rejected all of the bids for the library project due to massive cost overruns. Rather than move forward, they decided to reduce the scope of the project to get it within budget and then put it out for bids again in early 2023.

10 months ago, the Council received a presentation on the first design for the library, and now, during the 01/18/2023 Council meeting, Jason Fisher, an architect at Skidmore Owings and Merrill, the architectural firm in charge of the library project, walked the Council through the new design reducing the project’s scope.

• The existing library is 86,600 square feet. The original renovation plan intended to expand the library to 107,380 square feet. The new, reduced design will expand it to 90,150 square feet.
• The glass pavilions planned for the front of the building were reduced from 3 to 1.
• A terrace garden on the second floor had previously been removed due to budget concerns.
• The children’s sunken garden had also previously been removed due to cost.
• The second floor will be expanded by building on top of the single-story wing on the east of the building.
• The art space and teen area was consolidated into the “flex box” flexible multi-purpose space that had been planned for the new library.
• The community meeting room was reduced from a 400 person capacity to a 300 person capacity
• The learning stair will still be a feature albeit configured differently than originally planned.
• The new design would still focus on vertical connectivity and increasing light, and they would be opening up a currently existing skylight which is presently covered by a dropped ceiling.
• Unlike the previous design, the updated design will not markedly reduce the size of the parking lot.
• The planned geothermal system and roof solar panel array will remain.

Early in the presentation, Director of Parks, Recreation, and Facilities Dean Gazza made a point of saying that the geothermal system would remain, “Geothermal is one of those things that we know is not necessary to operate a library, but that was one of the things the stakeholders told us loud and clear that they wanted in this library. So, we did include that; it’s still included in the library. And it’s the right thing to do, because it has the payback. It’s good for you know, we know, for many things, whether it be social responsibility, environmental responsibility, and so forth.” He also noted that that was a decision that had to be early because it had a big effect not only on the boiler room but the overall project design.

Darrin Pursley from Boldt Construction, the project manager, spoke briefly on the current market conditions that might impact the project. They do see the market starting to ease and a lot of subcontractors are starting to look for work to fill their backlog. “There’s certainly been a shift in the market, which is very encouraging for this project, and for our upcoming bid date.”

When asked where the new design fell regarding the budget, Director Gazza said, “We’re near target. We are a little bit over in, you know, in certain areas, but it’s very conceptual in regards to the estimating, and we’re working on that, to get that refined and get that within budget.”

[The new design looks nice, but it’s more than a little ridiculous that after a decade of the city trying to force various costly and ostentatious plans on the public they are ended up with a design that probably would not have been particularly controversial had it been presented to the public 10 years ago. The public has endured a decade of claims explaining why the existing building couldn’t be renovated and why it couldn’t built upward even though the original 1980 design had been intended to facilitate a vertical expansion. Now, we’re ending up with a building that is renovating the existing space and expanding upward. What’s truly aggravating is that if the city hadn’t fought the public about this for so long we could have had this building years ago for far less than it’s going to cost us now due to the current economic situation. This is not a complaint about the current mayor or Common Council, both of which inherited this situation from the previous leaders of this city; however, it is still frustrating how irresponsible some previous parties seem to have been.]

View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1064887&GUID=5B72C5D0-B0E5-4C3E-80CC-12C411D6B617