By Marley Seaman
But it has been a struggle to get to this point, and some community members are saying the library that is being built is not the one they wanted when they approved the bond for its construction.
The new site is on the corner of Hempstead Avenue and Locust Street. The groundbreaking came two months after the library was originally scheduled to have opened, but obtaining the land for the site proved difficult, leading to considerable delays. Trustees said the library is now scheduled to open next July or August, with construction lasting 15 to 18 months.
When West Hempstead residents approved the $9.975 million bond for library construction in June 2003, they saw an architect¹s renderings of a facility with more than 25,000 square feet of space and a basement that provided room for future expansion. Other drawings showed a second-floor mezzanine overlooking an atrium.
At the Board of Trustees meeting on March 27, some community members said the board failed to deliver that library. Residents were told that the new building would be approximately 23,500 square feet, with a partial basement and a partial second floor. The present library measures some 8,000 square feet, and has almost twice as many books as it is built to hold. A portion of the planned library¹s basement and some of itsmezzanine were eliminated due to increased costs and legal fees.
³It looked beautiful,² said West Hempstead resident Seth Bykofsky of the rendering. ³[They¹re] taking away not only from the future expansion, but the aesthetics of it. It wasn¹t what the people were told they were getting.²
A press release from the board before the bond vote gave some details of the building¹s features, including Internet access, a multimedia area, a community room in the basement that will hold 120 to 135 people, and tutorial rooms. Those areas are included in the final design. The trustees said the drawing contained ³alternates² showing what they hoped to build, not what they promised to build.
³The bond was to purchase land and build a library,² said board President Ralph Reissman. ³Once the project goes out to bid ... that¹s when the price is set.²
Reissman told the Herald that the changes to the second floor were ³cosmetic,² and blamed the increased costs of concrete, steel and fuel. The board will ask for an additional $500,000 in the 2006-07 budget to cover those costs, as well as the legal expenses involved in buying the land.
Construction manager Chris Pearson said the larger mezzanine was only considered a possibility, and was one of several alternatives presented to the public. ³There was a decision made before bidding time ‹ significantly before bidding time ‹ that that was something the library could not afford,² Pearson said.
On the architect¹s renderings, the north and south portions of the basement are marked ³alternate.² The overlook is not shown on those renderings, but was part of other drawings that were displayed.
Board Vice President Ray Duran said the changes to the library design were made long ago, and were never a secret. ³[It was] information that was available to the public, had it asked,² he said. Duran called the drawings a ³good-faith estimate of what we would like to have built.²
Trouble getting the land
The parcel of land formerly housed an Eagle gas station and a strip mall. The board had both parcels of land appraised, and bought the gas station land at market price in January 2005. But board President Ralph Reissman said the owner of the strip mall asked for $2 million for land that had been appraised for $1.2 million.
³[They] wanted an exorbitant amount of money² for the property,² said Reissman.
The trustees went to court to have the mall condemned. The request was granted in October, and the trustees settled with the owner for $1.3 million. The deal was finalized only last week.
Failure to communicate
Reissman said that the board had achieved a lot in spite of the complications. ³It¹s amazing that we all put that together, and I think the library board deserves a lot of credit,² he said, adding that it was ³disappointing² that some community members were not satisfied with the results.
Bykofsky and others said the board could have done more to communicate. ³We relied on what was reported in the newsletter,² said Bykofsky. ³We had every reason to believe what was said was true. Nothing was said about cost overruns, nothing said about the cutting of the mezzanine, nothing said about eliminating the dig-out.²
Library director Regina Mascia said she did not remember if the library¹s newsletter had addressed the issue. ³I don¹t know if we ever said we weren¹t doing the mezzanine because it was never definite in the first place,² she said.
Rosalie Norton, a former library trustee, said both sides needed to listen to each other. ³There have to be open lines of communication in both directions,² Norton said.
Comments about this story? Mseaman@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 282.
