This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Politics & Government

New Library Building Is $3M Over Budget

Designers and the county are looking for ways to make cuts.

The construction for the new Silver Spring Library is currently about $3 million over budget, and officials are looking for ways to trim around the edges to meet the $32 million budget.

In a meeting on Aug. 26, planners and architects explained the designs for the library complex, which broke ground Monday morning. Construction is not expected to start for about 10 months, said David Dise, the director of the Montgomery County Department of General Services.

A slide show of the design plans of the new library was presented at the meeting, which was held at the existing library site. Dise explained that the $3 million overage is due to "the way the design was originally approached." He also stressed that the $32 million budget for the building is not just for the library.

Find out what's happening in Silver Springwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The seven-floor building design allows for more than the library, which the current plan has located on the third, fourth and fifth floors, said Greg Lukmire, representing The Lukmire Partnership, the project's consulting architectural firm.

The ground floor of the primarily glass building features a station for the future Purple Line light rail (or bus transportation), the library's lobby, an exhibit area and a retail facility for Pyramid Atlantic, the library's arts partner that is currently located on Georgia Avenue.

Find out what's happening in Silver Springwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The second, sixth and seventh levels are expected to contain an arts studio for Pyramid Atlantic, county offices and public meeting spaces, respectively.

The building is designed to be transparent, open, light filled and welcoming.

"We want people to say, 'What's going on in there? Looks like fun.' So we want a lot of natural light," Lukmire said. "We want it to be exciting and a highly functional library."

In addition to the main building, the library design contains an "airfoil" shaped section that is to house a coffee bar on the ground floor and an escalator that will provide access directly to the library. The Purple Line station passes under a platform section of the building separating the airfoil section from the main building.

"The design has always been set to include a coffee bar," Lukmire said. "We want a local business to operate a coffee bar to provide an amenity."

The escalator, which is expected to cost about $1 million, might have to be cut, Dise said, to help keep the project within budget.

Kathlin Smith, the Library Advisory Committee chair, said removing the escalator should not be considered an option.

"I really think removing the escalator would be a huge mistake," she said. "That is a dynamic, diagonal, visible entrance point to the library. This is otherwise going to be a little box in the sky."

In addition to eliminating the escalator, the county is looking at other options for cutting costs, including removing a few feet from the plans. The project costs about $350 per square foot, so any reduction in size would mean a reduction in cost. Lukmire said that's one reason the escalator should be considered for removal, because that is the only way the size of the airfoil structure can be reduced.

The current recession may also provide some opportunities to minimize costs.

"This is a large project and is likely to attract a lot of competition both in and outside this area from the construction industry," Dise said. "We think the competition is enough to net us a tremendous amount of savings."

Other construction projects have saved as much as 15 percent because of the competition in the construction industry, and Dise said there could be a savings of 5 percent to 10 percent on the library project, which could make up the difference.

But the county cannot plan on that happening. So planners are also looking within the project's features to see if any can be deducted to bring it within budget and still achieve the desires and expectations of the community, Dise said.

"Our commitment throughout this whole process has been to never tinker with the library's program of requirements," he stressed.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?