Thursday, December 6, 2007

Buildings and budgets -- continued

Our Library Board's Building and Equipment Committee met this week and reviewed our draft RFP for consulting services. We wrote the first draft of this document almost three years ago, and did a major revision the following year, when we hoped our Foundation might fund the study. Most of the writing was done by Tony Wieczorek, our Library Business Manager, along with Dean Gazza, the City Facilities Manager and me. The committee gave us some fine tuning suggestions.

Once the Board approves the RFP, we'll send it out to anyone we think might be interested. We've already heard from several consultants and architects who have at least a tentative interest.

Elements of the RFP include:
  • Overview
  • Background
  • The Building
  • Future Developments
  • Deliverables
  • RFP Proposal Submittal
  • Submittal, Evaluation & Award Process
  • Site/Building Tour
  • Questions
We're hoping to hire a consulting firm by February and have a report back in June. The report should help us evaluate our alternatives, with pros & cons as well as approximate costs. Alternatives to be considered will include:
  • remodel / expand our building
  • relocate to a new or different building
  • build or establish a branch or branches
This will be a lot of work, but it's important, worthwhile and exciting. One important concern will be to do the job well. Doing it right is more important than doing it quickly. We think four months will be a good time frame for the study, but when we get the recommendation, there will be many other decisions.

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