By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
YACHATS – The Yachats Library Commission has re-started its effort to significantly expand the city’s 48-year-old library building, seeking a designer for the interior and soon a builder for a project estimated to cost up to $600,000.
The city has posted notices and sent out inquiries seeking an interior designer to submit their work qualifications by Jan. 17. The commission hopes to select a building contractor by March and complete the project by January 2023.
An expansion has been in the works for at least three years, but stalled in June when the commission decided to slow its efforts because of the skyrocketing price of materials and the departure of city facilities staff.
But since then the commission has worked with architect Linn West, who is also chair of the Public Works and Streets Commission and who volunteered his time, to prepare the interior design request and ready a similar request for contractors.
“We have not given up on this project,” Library Commission Chair David Rivinus told YachatsNews. “We will absolutely put an addition on the library.”
Unlike other city projects, a library expansion has a significant head start on money for it and plans to get more.
The city and Friends of the Yachats Library have bequests from two estates totaling $300,000. Rivinus said the Library Commission also intends to contract with an experienced library fundraiser to seek local, state, regional and national grants to help pay for the rest of the expansion.
Helped by big gifts
It was the second of two $150,000 bequests in 2020 that led the Library Commission to postpone a city council-approved 400-square-foot expansion. The commission wanted to see if it could leverage more donations and grants for a bigger and better addition.
It then hired a library consultant to outline steps the city could take to improve library services. The consultant, Penny Hummel, recommended a 1,300 square foot expansion.
Hummel also recommended that the library join a statewide digital library consortium to expand its offerings to 100,000 downloadable books, hire a half-time library director or face losing its state accreditation, have Yachats voters decide whether to join the Lincoln County Library District, or at least join the district’s Chinook Library Network, which allows sharing of materials between three city and three coastal community college libraries.
The library has already joined the state digital network, using a $4,000 grant from the Friends group.
Interior design is key
Now, Rivinus said the commission is seeking an interior designer with experience with libraries so they can work with a contractor on a 1,200-square-foot addition and remodel the existing 2,327-square-foot building.
“It’s the interior that needs special attention,” he said. “There’s a whole psychology and method of designing a library interior” including sightlines and space for multiple, modern uses.
“The shell of the building itself is really pretty simple,” Rivinus said. “Any competent contractor could do this. The emphasis is on the interior.”
Rivinus estimates constructing the addition, remodeling the existing library and equipping it with new computers, furniture and fixtures could cost $500,000 to $600,000. The cost is much higher than a private project would be because the city is required by state law to pay “prevailing” union wages for any project over $50,000. That leads to a nearly doubling of construction costs.
The “request for qualifications” for a designer wants submissions by Jan. 17. The city has sent the notice to state construction websites and also plans to notify individuals it knows do that kind of work. The notice said that person would work with a builder the city hopes to select by March 1.
Rivinus said a “considerable” drop in the price of building materials, the need to get on an architect’s and builder’s schedule for 2022, and the desire to keep the momentum for the expansion fueled the Library Commission’s re-start of the project.
He also praised West for stepping in to develop the request for proposals in the absence of a city facilities staff. “He’s been wonderful to work with,” Rivinus said.
If it proceeds, the project will be one of several competing for city attention and money next year. The city is also seeking engineers to design a boardwalk along Ocean View Road overlooking the Yachats River, and the city needs to decide if or how to rebuild its Little Log Church building.
Rivinus said the two bequests and the potential for fundraising should help ease any significant concerns.
“We have the money to start,” he said. “We’re definitely trying to get this under way.”