JAMESTOWN – The James Prendergast Library is set to begin the next phase of renovations to help make the facility more handicapped accessible.
During its February board meeting the board of trustees voted to move forward with selecting the Kinley Corporation of Allegany to serve as lead contractor for its Phase 2 renovation project. Prendergast executive director Tina Scott said the library will pay the company $310,000 to construct a new handicapped-accessible bathroom on the second floor, as well as convert a freight elevator into a passenger elevator.
“People can come right up from the children’s room into the second floor meeting room once the elevator is complete,” Scott said. “So that’s going to be a huge benefit, especially for the mothers with strollers. We also have people who use our meeting rooms that are handicapped and they have a wheel chair, so that will make it much easier, especially with the rest rooms. They won’t have to go back down the elevator and to the front of the library.”
Work will begin this month and will continue for several months, with the project expected to be fully completed by the end of September. Scott said that once the work gets started… she doesn’t think the construction will impact library services.
“Usually what they do is put a wall up, so in the children’s room, near the back, they may have a wall up. I don’t really see that interfering with anything because they’ll probably do must of their work on the backside of the wall, in the staff area. The rest room upstairs will also have a wall during construction, so I don’t think it will impact any services.”
The cost of the project will be covered by a $243,000 grant from the New York State Department of Education’s Public Library Construction grant program, along with a $77,000 grant from the Hultquist Foundation.
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