Fundraising to start on new Cape library

CAPE ELIZABETH — A do-over ordered on the design of a new library for Cape Elizabeth was delivered to town councilors and library trustees in separate meetings Monday, winning the wide approval needed for the project to move on to its next phase.

However, that does not necessarily mean the plan, which unlike the first design retains the old Pond Cove School that now fronts the library, will come to fruition. There has been pushback in recent months to the building's projected $8.5 million price tag, and the next step in the process is to find how much of the money can be raised privately, and how much would have to come from taxpayers.

According to Councilor Jessica Sullivan, who serves as liaison between the council and library trustees, approval of the new design, created by Casaccio Architects of Pennsylvania, clears the way for fundraising to begin as soon as Friday. 

That's when Portland-based fundraising consultant Demont Associates – hired for $30,000 in early September from a pool of six bidders – will circulate survey packets to a list of 50 potential donors and other opinion-makers in town. Sullivan said that if those questionnaires are returned by mid-December, Demont can have a report ready for review by the library's oversight study committee "by early January."

Getting a handle on fundraising possibilities is particularly important, Town Manager Michael McGovern said. The council has set aside $100,000 for up-front work, such as Casaccio’s concept drawings, but it’s the study that will set the bar on what town officials can expect to raise in donations and, by extension, what they’ll have to collect via taxation if the new library is to be built.

Councilors "will need to decide by early summer" how much of the project, if any, to bond, in order to have a referendum question ready for the November 2012 ballot, McGovern said. He cautioned that the $8.5 million estimate – a third of which the library hopes to raise in private donations – does not include the cost of doing that fundraising, or how library services might be maintained during reconstruction.

If donors come forward in a big enough way, and if voters approve a bond, the new library could open as soon as 2014, said McGovern.

The dream of replacing the Thomas Memorial Library has been percolating in Cape Elizabeth since 2007, when a Town Council-appointed study committee commissioned a report by Himmel & Wilson Library Consultants, of Milton, Wis. That report outlined a list of 102 structural and design deficiencies in the building, which is actually an amalgamation of five separate structures, including three one-room schoolhouses, each at least a century old, moved to the site and linked via two connecting annexes.

Problems include many specific to libraries – shelves have to be spaced far apart in the older section, which houses the children’s wing, because the floor will no longer handle the load, while they are too close to meet ADA standards in the newer “Pond Cove” wing, due to cramped quarters. There also are issues with moisture and humidity (neither a friend to books), poor ventilation and lack of facilities to run the wiring required of modern libraries in the computer age.

“Another of the gross inadequacies is that the heating plant and control systems are just completely obsolete,” Library Director Jay Scherma said. “Plus, nothing here was designed with any concept of modern plumbing involved.”

"If this was a school building, it'd be shut down," RuthAnne Haley, chairwoman of the board of trustees, said following Monday's meeting.

Combined, the library’s five buildings contain 15,000 square feet of space, but only 13,500 is what Sherma terms “usable,” due to the maze-like result of how the old schoolhouses were cobbled together. “Even at that, the building is about 6,000 square feet too small,” Sherma said.

The Himmel & Wilson report concluded that the cost of renovating any part of the existing library is too great and the historical significance of the component pieces too low, to justify saving the structure. Consequently, Casaccio's original design, presented to focus groups in June, was a complete rebuild, which clocked in at 23,000 square feet.

Lee Casaccio said the concept of his firm’s initial design, crafted after an architectural tour of the town, was “a lighthouse of the mind.” However, some folks felt the “reverse dormers” were a bit too funky for Cape Elizabeth.

“We heard comments from some of our citizens that they were concerned about the first concept, that it lost the Colonial feel that fits in with the rest of the town,” explained Haley, adding that the new plan retains the section of the library that fronts Scott Dyer Road, built in 1910 as the Pond Cove School.

That request of Casaccio was made partly for historical preservation, and partly to reduce costs, she said. Although $8 million was the figure previously bandied about, when anyone felt brave enough to give a dollar figure at all, the current best guess, given the early stage of the project is $8.5 million, which McGovern now claims shaves “about $1 million” off a complete rebuild.

Haley said another concern raised by some was the footprint of the original design. Although the one-story plan left space for 80 parking spots, it crowded both the street frontage and the adjacent grade school. By making the new plan a two-story structure, she said, it preserves the front lawn (where a performance space may be added) and a buffer zone between the library and the school. However, McGovern noted that the new layout leaves room enough for just 50 parking spots.

In order to match up correctly with the old Pond Cove section, the lower floor of the new library will be sunk several feet into the ground. Patrons coming through the new front door will first have to descend “seven or eight steps” to that lower section, which will contain meeting rooms, storage, mechanical rooms and space for the Historical Society, or a few steps up, to the collection.

The Pond Cove building will house the children’s section, while the primary collection, and the young adult section will all be contained in a new wing behind the school.

The roof over the main section will have three traditional dormers on each side of a hipped roof.

“When Jay [Sherma] and I first saw that, we though ‘money,’” joked McGovern, but all of the citizens who have seen it have really liked that part of the plan.

“We’ve really tried to get a lot of input over the last few months from a lot of different folks,” said McGovern, “and, every time we look at a new plan [based on those comments] the staff thinks we’re getting closer and closer to getting it right.”

Sherma admits the drive to grow the library is “not population driven,” as was the most recent expansion in 1987. Instead, even as technology would seem to argue away the need for a larger library, Sherma said the real trend is for libraries to fill a need as community centers for arts and civic functions of all kinds.

“A library is not just a place to store books,” he said, “it is a place where people come together.”