Four architectural firms make Dougherty County Library System short list

ALBANY — Dougherty County Library System Director Pauline Abidde said Tuesday the Library Board will make a decision “in the next week or two” on an architectural firm that will design and oversee the $2 million state-funded renovation of the Northwest Library branch.

The Library Board held a marathon session Monday, interviewing representatives of the four finalist firms at the conclusion of its monthly meeting at the Central Library branch.

“Making this decision is going to be difficult because all four firms are very qualified and they put together good presentations before the board last night,” Abidde said Tuesday morning. “But we are going to make a decision (on which firm receives the contract) quite soon because when you are spending state capital outlay funds, you work by a schedule.

“We are in the first phase of our project, where we have to make a decision on an architect. It will not be long.”

The four firms that made presentations before the Library Board Monday included two local firms: SRJ Architects and Maschke and Associates. Also meeting with the board were representatives of Hecht Burdeshaw Architects of Columbus and CAS Architecture of Grayson.

“We’re familiar with the work of all four firms,” Abidde said. “SRJ did work on the first phase of the Northwest Library; Maschke built the Southside Library; Hecht Burdeshaw designed the Central Library renovation project, and while CAS has not done any work for us in the past, they are well-known for their work on libraries.”

The $2 million grant that was part of the state’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget will be used to expand space in the Northwest branch by 11,000 square feet. Planned improvements include a community/events center, complete with kitchen, space for the system’s genealogy department, and additional space for child and young adult patrons.

“We’re not going to add onto the building; we’re going to utilize the existing available space in that facility,” Abidde said of the Northwest branch. “We renovated as much as we could of the space available with the funding that was available when we moved into the building (that was formerly a furniture store). We’ve used the additional space for storage while trying to secure funding to complete the renovation.”

To clear out the massive number of books and other materials that have been stored in the Northwest branch, the Library System held one massive weekend book sale in June and has continued to sell materials on a smaller scale since.

“To date, we’ve made over $15,000 in sales,” Abidde said. “But we have a lot of books and materials still left that we’d like to put in people’s hands. We’ll probably do one more big push to sell the remaining books before we start construction. We’ll set a date after the board votes on an architect.”