Plainsboro Township Committee is expected to hire an architect to design a new township library as soon as it receives updated estimates on the cost of the project.##M:[more]##
Committee on July 27 decided to put off the authorization of a $765,”000 contract with George Schieferdecker of BKSK Architects of New York City for full design services for the new building, planned to be constructed in the Plainsboro Village Center project on Schalks Crossing Road.
“The committee asked us to go back and work with the architect to get up-to-date numbers on preliminary estimates for the cost of the project,” says Township Administrator Robert Sheehan. “The last estimate we have ($8.5 million) is from December, 2003, when the feasibility study was conducted.”
He points out that although the new cost numbers will still be preliminary, “it will help give us an overall understanding with regards to the actual cost of the project.”
Sheehan says he hopes to see the design contract approved within the next month “if committee is comfortable with it.”
Although the project has not officially been given the green light, some funds have already been allocated. In June the committee adopted a $4 million bond ordinance that included $1.2 million for the library design.
Plans call for a new 34,”000-square-foot library to be the centerpiece of the mixed use Village Center project, being constructed by Sharbell Development. The library would be located at the eastern end of the village green, bounded by commercial buildings to the north and west, and residential housing to the south.
Initially the township planned to expand the library at its current location on the township municipal site on Plainsboro Road, but decided to look at building a new library in the Village Center when plans for a YMCA in the development fell through. Sharbell has offered to donate the land for the library to the township.
Last summer Schieferdecker submitted a feasibility study to the township that found that constructing a new building would not be that much more costly that the planned expansion.
The proposed new library would be a three-story structure with a ground floor that would include a lobby, computers, a section for periodicals, a community room that could be accessed by groups even if the library were closed, space for stacks, and a rear garden.
The second floor would include study rooms, a history room, a reference office, an art gallery, more computer space and stacks, as well as a cafe. The third floor would be the children’s area.
