Tulare Valley Voice Article August 14, 2008

Each month we will be posting articles written by the library staff that appeared in the Tulare Valley Voice. This month’s article was written by our Library Director Michael Stowell. Enjoy!

 

“Off the Shelf”

7-12-08

    You may have noticed quite a bit of activity recently at the new library construction site at Cross & M Street. Preparation work has been underway to get the site ready for a late September start. The alley that ran through the middle of the site contained quite a lot of underground utility infrastructure that had to be removed as the new building will sit on top of this area. Electrical, telephone, cable TV, gas and sewer lines had to be capped off at the edge of the site and the old stuff ripped out of the ground. To make that possible, the first step was to disconnect all these utilities and then we had to scrape away the asphalt pavement in the alley. All this took a lot of effort by City of Tulare crews, and they did a great job.

   Also underway at the site was the last of the soils testing work. Prior to construction, we needed to test the soil to determine compaction rates, etc. for the structural system. This allows the engineers to write the specifications for all the earthwork and foundation plans. So, even though the site still looks like one big dirt lot, lots of preparation work is underway!

   Speaking of preparation work, our design team, led by Paul Halajian from the Taylor Teter Partnership, is about ½ through the Design Development stage of our plans. Other key members from Taylor Teter include Mike Boone, Jamie Dronyk and Elizabeth Garcia (from Tulare!). The next task will be to draw the actual construction documents that are released for bidding the work. At present, we have the following sub-consultants assisting in this effort: Mechanical Engineer, Structural Engineer, Civil Engineer, Electrical Engineer, Landscape Architect, Interior Design, Audio-Visual Consultant, Acoustical Consultant and Signage Consultant. As you can see, lots of people hard at work to put this all together. The level of detail can be daunting at times, down to the selection of every plumbing fixture, every color and finish type, etc. For those of you who have ever built your own home, you may have gone through this exciting yet exhausting experience. Also on board at this time is Mike Anderson, from Zumwalt Construction. Mike and his staff are working on cost estimating and constructability reviews to make sure we stay within our budget. Zumwalt has recent experience that relates to our project (Woodward Park branch library in Fresno and a new City Hall in Chowchilla that included a city council chambers); so their contribution has been very valuable. Once we get started, they will bid out all the individual sub-contractor packages (about 22 we think) and oversee the day-to-day construction process.

   The official ground breaking ceremony will be held on Monday, October 6^th at 10 AM. We are still targeting an opening date for this new facility in March 2010. Please mark your calendars now for October 6^th as we hope to have lots of community members join us for this important project milestone.

   Please feel free to drop by the library any time to look over the plans we have to date. The details are coming together, and I am confident we will build a new Library and City Council Chambers facility that everyone in Tulare will be proud to visit.