Designs for a library starkly different than the one that sits next to Manhattan Beach City Hall were unveiled before the Planning Commission last week, as the county moves ahead with plans for the reconstruction of its library in Manhattan Beach.
At a Dec. 8 meeting, Jim Favaro of the architectural firm MDA Johnson Favaro presented the commission with drawings of a mostly glass, open, light-filled two-story structure with a second-story view of the ocean, in contrast to the one-story building with a brick façade and few windows that currently sits in the Civic Center along Highland Avenue.
Renderings of the modest and minimalist building represent the pre-design phase of a project started three years ago and expected to be completed in 2012.
“It’s not just a concept now, but a reality,” said Commissioner Kathleen Paralusz. “It’s exciting to see it start to take shape.”
For years, the city has discussed making improvements to the library, which is owned and run by Los Angeles County and undersized for the population of 35,000 residents it serves, according to county library officials. A Facilities Strategic Plan conducted by the city three years ago identified the library, built in 1975, as the facility that residents most wanted renovated.
When the county offered to fund the project through excess tax revenue collected from residents for the library, the city hired Johnson Favaro to design a building to entirely replace the existing structure. The firm is also designing a new county library in West Hollywood, as well as renovations for the Beverly Hills City Library.
Favaro said that the firm focused on providing Manhattan Beach’s new library with qualities of light and space, integrating the inside and outside areas of the building.
“As far as we’re concerned, it should be transparent, open, engaging of the sidewalk, fit with surroundings in a modest way and where you’re able to see through it so that the people and the things in the library are giving it an architectural quality,” he said. “This will be a different type of civic building in the way you’re a different type of community.”
Manhattan Beach’s current 12,000 square foot library sits on a 30,000 square foot lot that has the capacity for a 40,000 square foot building if it were built in two stories, Favaro said.
In order to use less land space, architects designed a 20,000 square foot building in two stories and freed up the rest of the lot for use as an open area that could accommodate future expansion or a small pocket-park or amphitheater. A children’s room will lead to the outside area in hopes of outdoor story times, as well as connect to a community room with a capacity for 100 people.
The building averages 31 feet high, with 13-foot and 10-foot ceilings on the first and second floors, respectively. It is rectangular with large, repeating glass windows that can be manipulated to increase or decrease reflectivity and translucency, while offering a sweeping view from Palos Verdes to Malibu from the second floor.
Planning Commission Chair Jim Fasola expressed concern over whether the ceiling height might limit the possibilities of the library’s main room.
“I would like to see a truly great space in this building,” he said. “I just really hope that the main room comes out to be a great room.”
To increase foot traffic, the new design puts the library’s main entrance at the northwest corner of its lot near Highland — instead of where it sits now on the north side facing City Hall — minimizing its distance to parking lots west of Highland.
All designs will be subject to county approval.
The project’s $17 million budget will be partially funded by a county library tax surplus –$900,000 a year collected from residents over the past several years — that totals $4.2 million. City Public Works director Jim Arndt projected that amount to increase to $6 million or $7 million when construction begins in 2012. Favaro estimated an 18-month construction process.
The city plans to issue bonds to fund the remaining balance, which Arndt said will be paid off through future excess county tax revenues.
“Our marching orders are ‘No money from the city involved,’” Arndt said.
The City Council will review the library reconstruction project’s scope and budget at its Jan. 18 meeting. ER
