By Crystal McGough
For The Tribune
CLAY — Representatives from Lathan Associates Architects and Interior Elements presented plans for the new Clay Public Library building during Clay’s pre-council session Tuesday night.
According to Dan Chappell, executive vice president of Interior Elements, the new library is expected to have multiple lounge areas, a fireplace, private study rooms with glass walls, a multi-purpose room, café-height tables and a back porch with additional tables and chairs.
The children’s area will have soft, tiered, amphitheater-type seating.
“We can fit approximately 7,000 books in this particular set-up,” Chappell said of the shelving.
City Manager Ronnie Dixon said that the drawings will be complete by Oct. 27 and then sent to Montgomery for ADA approval. He said he expects the project to go out for bid in early November.
“Unless we get a lot of wet weather during the winter, we’ll be on schedule for an April opening,” he said. “Really weather is the only thing that can hold us up.”
The new library will provide an additional meeting space within the city of Clay, Dixon said.
“What we’ve done with this, if you think about meeting spaces, Cosby (Lake), we’ve got it set up for 40 people,” he said. “The community center is set up for 80 and will go to 110 easily. This fits right in the middle with 60. So it’ll give the city three different unique-sized meeting rooms. The overall design…really makes it a library with multi-functions.”
During the regular council meeting, Councilor Dennis Locke announced the winners of the September school grants. Each teacher will receive $500 to put toward classroom needs.
The winners are:
Clay Elementary School Speech Language Pathologist Bethany Porter, who plans to purchase a nice, sturdy dry erase board for her classroom.
Clay-Chalkville Middle School Special Education math teacher Eartha McGoldrick, who plans to purchase Chromebooks and headsets with microphones.
Clay-Chalkville High School Exceptional Education/Speech Language Pathology teacher Leslie Childs, who plans to purchase a color printer.
Also, Councilor Bo Johnson reminded those in attendance that the city’s fist fall festival will be this Friday from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. by the library.
“I’ll be honest with you guys, when I spoke the idea of having a fall festival, I had something much smaller in mind,” Johnson said. “At this point we have 47 booths.”
In addition to the booths, the fall festival will include face painting, a dunking machine, a hayride and petting zoo, shaved ice, popcorn, cotton candy, Chick-fil-A sandwiches, hot dogs, sodas and chips.
“Everything’s free for those who are attending,” Johnson said. “It should really be a lot of fun.”
4 Comments
Jeremy Horton
What would be the plan for the current library building? A lot of effort was made by the community to preserve that house.
Kevin Small
If it looks half as good as what was presented last night, it will be an amazing library
Don Baker
We will house the geese in the old library for the winter. Sorry, couldn’t resist…..
Patrick M Belz
Erin