It’s a two-level building now. After encountering insurmountable problems with the basement design of a proposed three-level structure, the Ad-Hoc Library Building Committee is looking to move forward with a two-story building that adds a bit more square footage to the two levels and eliminates the basement.

The voter-approved renovation plan for the E.C. Scranton Memorial Library is a scaled-down version of the plan that Madison voters narrowly defeated in a 2008 referendum vote. Approved designs for the building work to preserve the historical architecture while improving the streetscape and expanding the floor plan. The square footage of the building will jump from 17,000 to 37,000 and a 45-space parking lot will be added.

The project to renovate the library is estimated to cost $15 million, but due to grants and fundraising efforts, the library asked the town to bond for $9.1 million.

The renovation plan has encountered its share of challenges in the past months with a shift in architects, projected cost overruns, energy operating concerns, and the proposed elimination of the Hull Building. At the building committee meeting on Feb. 5, a survey conducted by environmental engineer GeoTech created another problem.

The survey showed there is groundwater at nine feet below grade and, in the current design for the new addition, the basement is deeper than nine feet. If the building basement were to stay where it is in the design, the committee would face expensive moisture mitigating measures including possibly increasing the depth of the concrete slab, waterproofing procedures, and adding active water removal gear.

As a result, project architects Drummey Rosane Anderson, Inc. (DRA) reworked the schematic design for the building and presented a new option to the committee on Feb. 21. The design completely eliminates the basements and moves some of the square footage up into the two-story addition.

To do this, some of the addition walls are bumped out a bit and the entrance driveway would have to be moved to accommodate the larger floor plan of the addition. A few rooms have been moved around the building, though promised program space remains largely the same. While the final space increase still needs to be calculated, the building committee seemed pleased with the changes.

“It’s a much better design,” said Billy Budd. “Not by a little, but by a lot.”

Angela Cahill of DRA said with this design the building is now down to the bare minimum in terms of added square footage—16,500.

“It’s a much more efficient design,” she said. “The staff is going to be a lot easier to manage with two stories.”

When the project was called for referendum, the plan was to add about 20,000 square feet. With a reduction in square footage in excess of 10 percent of the approved project design, the library will likely have to go back to the State Library, an organization that provided one of the project’s construction grants, to justify the reduction. Cahill said having to make that justification is not uncommon, but there is also the issue of the bond approved by town voters.

Members of the committee again raised the point about the bond call and the change in square footage. First Selectman Tom Banisch previously said he has been in touch with the town attorney and bond counsel to see how much of a scope change could be tolerated before the project would have to go back to the voters again. Banisch said the attorney has advised him that there is no clear line as to what percentage change would render the vote null and attorneys would have to wait to see the new modified design before making any decision.

However, Library Board of Trustees President Beth Coyne said, based on her conversation with Banisch, she doesn’t think there should be too much issue with the bond call as long as the programmatic design remains the same.

Beyond the square footage, the issue of cost has repeatedly arisen. The committee and architect had come up with ideas like simplifying the envelope of the building, replacing some brick with siding, cutting some square footage out of the addition, leaning on the library trustees to pay for some items, and possibly deferring some items that could be considered maintenance to the Capital Improvement Program. The library needs to hit a roughly $11.4 million construction budget.

DRA Architect Ken Best said the library was able to cut some cost by eliminating the basement and, by his own calculations, the committee is on the right track at roughly $11.5 million.

“I have to believe that we are within the ballpark of where we need to be,” he said.

The next formal cost estimate won’t occur until the new schematic is approved and moves to design development. The last big unknown in the rough cost estimate is the mechanical system, something that worried Colliers International’s Ken Guyette.

“That scares the hell out of me because we don’t know exactly what we are doing with the mechanical systems yet,” he said. “Don’t proceed to design development until you are on budget.”

Committee member Woodie Weiss presented an option to the committee for the HVAC system and said the proposal won’t skew the current design budget.

The committee elected to take a few days to review Weiss’s information and is expected to vote on the new schematic design on Monday, Feb. 26 (after press time).