Library Board Hears Presentation on Expansion Designs, Concepts

Below are links to the Plainfield Public Library District’s meeting of May 20th, 2015. Total run time is just a little less than 2 ½ hours, with no actions taken following brief closed session.

PPL May 20th meeting, part 1 of 6 (30 mins)
PPL May 20th meeting, part 2 of 6 (30 mins)
PPL May 20th meeting, part 3 of 6 (30 mins)
PPL May 20th meeting, part 4 of 6 (30 mins)
PPL May 20th meeting, part 5 of 6 (24 mins)
PPL May 20th meeting, part 6 of 6 (15 secs)

Trustees Samantha Hurtado and Vicki Knight were absent.

Also of note was the swearing in of newly elected trustees (Andel, Gilmore, Kinley, and Puetz) and the election of board officers, with Carl Gilmore elected as board president. Other business was conducted, but the biggest piece of this meeting was the presentation regarding library expansion plans by Nagle Hartray Architects.

My take:

The presentation of draft designs for expanding our library—and, make no mistake, I’m very much pro-expansion—was interesting and takes a couple of hours to get through. That’s not a bad thing. It wouldn’t be wise or responsible to short-cut or hurry through this kind of review and analysis.

MORE meetings are upcoming where the public will be able to come and see and talk about the concepts being put forth, so watch for that and join in!

Two locations are being considered. The current site/land of our library on Illinois Street and a site called Greenfield, essentially a piece of that 58 acres behind or south of GymQuest (at corner of Van Dyke and Wood Farm Roads). Wood Farm is that small road that is also accessed from Lockport only via westbound lanes,across from Village Hall and right after the railroad crossing (coming up alongside the Tap House). The Village of Plainfield already has an industrial park planned for the far north end of that stretch of land, so the library would be more toward the southern end.

One other woman and I were there from the general public and it was a good, open discussion, much like a workshop on the ideas. The feeling in the room at this point seemed to lean away from the Greenfield location.

The favored design at this stage seems to be the “middle one” presented, where the new library building is built at the north end of the current Illinois Street lot, with access from both Rt. 59 and Illinois, and with added underground parking. The entrance to that building would face south and there would be a preservation effort made to incorporate, perhaps as an anchor to an open green space (something patrons showed great interest in during a survey this past spring), the historic “little library” structure that was added onto during the last expansion, 24 years ago. One option presented was to do another build-on to the existing library, shooting northward, but aside from design and program operation problems that creates, it would hinder day-to-day library service during construction. If a separate structure is built, the existing library can continue to serve in the current building during that construction, albeit at some point with less parking, if the new building is indeed at the Illinois Street location.

So, watch the presentation if you can, keep your eyes open for further meetings to attend, and mull over what you think as a tax-payer and library patron is best. Please do join in the conversation on this important issue for Plainfield. If you go to the main page of the PPL’s website, you will find a link specifically for the expansion project on the left, under Quick Links—but, click here and you’ll go right to it. Edited to add: on the web page for the expansion, you’ll see a link for the most current timeline for the project--take a look there because there are THREE meetings coming up in June (11th, 13th, and 17th), at different times and locations--you might be interested in making it to one or more of those!

You can see meeting agendas and, as they become available, minutes for the board’s meetings on the library’s website: Plainfield Public Library, board page.

As always, should you have any questions regarding this content, please feel free to contact me at radical4plainfield@gmail.com or via regular mail at Polito, PO Box 1071, Plainfield, IL 60544.