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New Tri-Lakes Library dedicated
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Beckett Liller, 2, and his sister, Harper Liller, 5, examine a computer during Tuesday’s dedication of the new $2 million Tri-Lakes Library, 13820 Mahoning Ave., North Jackson. They are the grandchildren of Anne Liller, the library system’s manager of urban branches and community outreach. The dedication ceremony was followed by the Outback Ray live animal show.
North Jackson
Library officials praised the long-awaited new $2 million Tri-Lakes Library as an institution that promotes learning, access to technology and career advancement and serves as a community meeting place.
“We are pleased to be opening the new library branch, with its spacious interior and unique features,” said Heidi M. Daniel, director of the 15-branch Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County.
“It’s a library that’s going to serve a geographical area that hasn’t had a library of this scale previously.”
Today’s public libraries are places where the community gathers and patrons use technology and increase their job skills, Daniel said.
Today’s library “combines civic life, leisure time and academic pursuits,” Daniel said during Tuesday’s dedication ceremony.
“We believe this library, like so many in our system, will soon become central to the community as a gathering place, a place for enrichment and recreation, a place for learning and growing,” said Dr. David Ritchie, library board president.
“Our new library is just a stone’s throw from our middle school and high school. I expect it to play an important role in the education of our students,” said Thomas Frost, a library and Jackson Township trustee.
“Basically, what we built here is a community center,” said Ronald Cornell Faniro, project architect. “The idea here, actually, was to make this building very transparent and feel very casual and comfortable,” he said, referring to the large expanses of window glass that bathe the library in sunlight.
Because of the high ceilings, which peak at 24 feet in the apex of the center roof, and the fact that warm air rises, six fans near the ceiling slowly rotate to circulate the interior air, Faniro said. “This building should heat and cool very efficiently even though it has high ceilings,” he added.
The dedication ceremony was followed by an animal show featuring Outback Ray (Ray Anderson of Akron) and his menagerie, which included Sponge Bob, his albino Burmese python; Gabby, his umbrella cockatoo; chinchillas from South America; an opossum; a hairless guinea pig; a giant African tortoise; a Madagascar hissing cockroach; a blue-tongued skunk from Australia; and an albino milk snake.
The new one-story, 6,270-square-foot branch, whose name reflects its proximity to Lake Milton and Berlin and Meander reservoirs, is at 13820 Mahoning Ave., just west of Duck Creek Road, adjacent to the Jackson-Milton schools complex. It was built on school-donated land.
The general contractor was DSV Builders Inc. of Niles. Other contractors were Ellyson Plumbing and Heating of Salem, plumbing; D & G Mechanical Inc. of West Middlesex, Pa., mechanical; and Zenith Systems Inc. of Bedford Heights, electrical.
Separate North Jackson and Lake Milton branches closed in late June and merged into the Tri-Lakes Library, which opened for business July 22.
Ground was broken July 30, 2012, for the new branch, for which construction plans had been shelved in 2008 after a recession-induced decline in library system funding.
The new library was paid for by local library levy and state funds and private donations, with no debt incurred to build it.
“We are debt free, and we don’t incur debt to build our buildings, so there are no interest charges,” said Janet Loew, library communications and public relations director.