Voters in Deerfield, Il., will be able to vote this November in a non-binding referendum on whether to increase their property taxes to pay for a library expansion that could be designed by Frank Gehry. According to the article, Gehry was interested in what the Board tought of the OMA Seattle Library. Previously...
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Unless they get sticker shock at a meeting Saturday, the Deerfield Public Library board will ask voters in November to approve the sale of up to $25 million in bonds for a new library.
"We've been studying this for two-plus years," said Jack Hicks, administrative librarian. "I think now we pretty much have everything lined up."
Emboldened by the interest of architect Frank Gehry, who has said he wants to design the building, the board voted Aug. 18 to put an advisory referendum question on the November ballot.
But the move, made with 12 days until the Aug. 30 deadline to place an issue on the ballot, had Hicks scrambling this week to come up with a cost estimate.
Working with architect Don Wrobleski, who designed a recent library renovation, and Flodstrom Construction Co., a local contractor that built Deerfield's library in 1971, Hicks said they arrived at the $25 million figure by estimating they would need an 80,000-square-foot building.
The $25 million projection was sobering, Wrobleski said, considering that the library cost $1 million to build and furnish 33 years ago.
If approved, the village, which oversees the library, could use its home-rule power to sell bonds to pay for the project.
The 9 a.m. meeting Saturday in the library is intended, in part, as a last chance for board members to back out now that there's a cost estimate.
"Whether they'll pass this tomorrow or run from this I don't know," Hicks said.
By Sean D. Hamill
Special to the Tribune
Published August 28, 2004
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