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Major Boardman library upgrade planned
BOARDMAN
The buildings and sites committee of the Mahoning County public-library system’s trustee board has recommended a major interior renovation of the Boardman branch to the full board.
The $627,110 plan, including furnishings, was presented to the committee Tuesday by architect Ray Jaminet, the original designer of the 21,500-square-foot building, which opened in 1993.
“This library’s going to function as a 21st-century learning center, with all the movable equipment that’s going to be put in here and the additional technology,” Jaminet said.
“I want it to appear as a modern, exciting building, with lots of space for activity, but also space for quiet areas,” said Heidi Daniel, library director.
Key features of the plan are:
Merger of the clerks’ and librarians’ service desks into a single-service desk with an unobstructed view of almost all public areas of the library.
Conversion of the west end of the building into a flexible space that can be closed off with sliding doors into a meeting room or opened up into a reading room.
Addition of an outdoor adult-reading terrace and an adjacent children’s garden on the northeast corner of the building.
Installation of return slots for borrowed library materials in the west side of the building, so those materials will drop directly into a library staff work space and no longer have to be collected from outdoor bins.
Addition of a coffee-vending counter.
If the full trustee board of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County meets in April to authorize the project, the work would be performed between June and October, with the library staying open during most of the renovations.
The project will be debt-free and funded by the library’s building-and-repair fund, Daniel said.
Jaminet’s drawings will be posted soon on the library system’s website, www.libraryvisit.org, and public comments on them are encouraged, Daniel said.
The Boardman library’s roof and boilers were replaced last year.