Library board seeks contractors for $21M revamp of main branch

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County board is seeking an architectural firm to plan the estimated $21 million renovation to the library’s main branch along Wick Avenue, a 108-year-old Carnegie library renovated in 1954 and 1996.

Board members during a Thursday meeting approved an advertisement for contractor qualifications. The board’s Building and Sites Committee also met Thursday to draft a request similar to previous contractor requests, said Aimee Fifarek, executive director.

The requests will be released early next month with returns expected within six weeks, she said. The library board plans to set a pre-proposal conference for interested bidders.

“We did add pieces so that we’re able to solicit information about the firms’ experience renovating historic buildings, and if that includes other Carnegie libraries, so much the better,” she said. “We definitely want people used to working with buildings of an age we’re looking at. It definitely doesn’t have to be a library but that is certainly a plus.”

The public entered more than 400 recommendations for the renovations during a series of public hearings late last year, some of which prioritized “keeping and, to a certain extent, restoring the historical significance” of the building, Fifarek said.

In other business, the board appointed JoAnn Stock, Akron Children’s Hospital’s senior director of development in the Mahoning Valley area, to fill the remainder of the board term vacated by former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Mary DeGenaro of Poland.

DeGenaro resigned from the board after accepting a job in the state auditor’s office in Columbus. Her term expires January 2022.