With $19 million budgeted for a new downtown library at the Baton Rouge River Center, the Metro Council has now approved an architect contract for design of the project and effectively ended the first of many anticipated debates about how that money will be spent.
Voting 7-4, the council approved a $1.5 million contract to WHLC Architecture of Baton Rouge and Schwartz/Silver Architects of Boston for a joint design of the library. The council’s next vote on the project in months to come is expected to be on a contract for demolition of the existing library.
“My hope is that there are not attempts to derail the project at every point,” says Councilwoman Tara Wicker, whose district includes downtown. “It has already been decided to demolish it.”
Councilman Rodney “Smokie” Bourgeois, an opponent of the library project, characterizes the project as a guise for the city to build a new downtown façade, rather than a technologically advanced learning facility for decades to come.
However, the Library Board of Control is using a 10-year property tax—passed in 2005—to upgrade its library system. A new Main Library on Goodwood Boulevard is currently under construction with a budget of $44 million. “Basically we’re ‘pay-as-you-go,’ every bit of the way,” says Mary Stein, co-director of the library system. “If we have enough money to build, we try to build.”
Unlike the Main Library, the downtown library is expected to close for construction, according to Jim Frey, architect with the East Baton Rouge Department of Public Works.
The approval of the architect contract means the firms can begin designing the new library, Stein says. She points out the Main Library took a year to design.
During the early stages of selecting an architect, controversy erupted when early frontrunner Trey Trahan of Baton Rouge accused city officials of derailing him by passing around material implying his early designs were copies of another building in design in the Czech Republic. Trahan reportedly threatened to sue for being removed from consideration; but according to his attorney, Grey Sexton, no lawsuit has been filed.
Early discussions include the possibility of a restaurant on the new library’s top floor. Quips Bourgeois: “They might put wings on the building so it can fly. Who knows?”
