Library’s final overhaul costs land within budget
Anticipated construction costs for the overhaul of the Central Arkansas Library System’s Main Library in Little Rock have come in “right on the nose” of the $25 million available for the work, Executive Director Nate Coulter said in a written report to the library system’s board this week.
The final pricing came af- ter the lead construction firm handling the project, CDI Contractors, reported numbers received from its subcontractors, Coulter wrote in his report prepared for a board meeting Thursday.
Fees and contingency costs are expected to bring the total spending associated with the renovations to $30 million.
There was some uneasiness earlier this year about how the final pricing for the overhaul of the five-story branch located at 100 S. Rock St. would shake out.
CDI Contractors previously provided a design-stage estimate of the construction costs of $26.2 million, approximately $1 million over the library system’s budget. In late January, Coulter told board members to “worry, but don’t panic.”
“Perhaps all the worrying I did about the final pricing paid off because my concerns did not come to pass,” Coulter wrote in his report this week.
Two items have been removed from the design of the refurbished branch: a balcony extending out from the new Darragh Center on the fifth floor and a “stage and related amenities” in the firstfloor children’s area, Coulter wrote.
Another design element for two columns in the Darragh Center had been removed, but was inserted into the plans again later based on the architects’ confidence that they could find savings over the course of the work to cover the $585,000 expense, according to Coulter’s report.
Reese Rowland of Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects, who is part of the team of architects the library system tapped for the project, told
board members on Thursday that CDI Contractors was ahead of schedule on the interior demolition work, which has been completed on the third, fourth and fifth floors.
Final plans include an open rooftop space that Rowland said they “fought so hard to get,” working for about an extra month on pricing to achieve the design element. He described the rooftop event space as a “gift to the city.”
In addition to many other changes, the renovated Main Library will include a new cafe operated by the Boulevard Bread Company.
The branch has been closed since last September and is expected to remain closed well into 2025. The building originally was constructed in 1920 as a warehouse for the Fones Brothers
Hardware Company. The library system has occupied the building since 1997.
A successful 2022 capital-improvement bond referendum in Little Rock extended and lowered a millage, clearing the way for renovations at the Main Library and another branch, the Sue Cowan Williams Library, located at 1800 S. Chester St. in Little Rock.
The Williams branch closed to the public last November, and Coulter indicated Thursday that the remodeling work there was all but finished.
Officials plan to hold the grand reopening April 19 for the Williams Library.
In his report, Coulter also shared that the library system had “fully recovered” from a ransomware attack in February.
The attack, which has been attributed to the ransomware group known as LockBit, left branches without Internet access for 14 days.
“The IT Department has completed the restorative actions planned after the attack. These include rebuilding our server and firewall, and downloading copies of our domain controllers that were maintained offsite,” Coulter wrote. “There were some relatively minor losses in the form of some documents that did not get restored, such as an inventory of the art [the library system] owns, and some forms used by the Finance Department.”
The library system has engaged the cybersecurity firm Arete, which investigated the ransomware attack, to monitor the network 24/7, board members were told.
Half of the cost of the $70,000 one-year contract with Arete will be paid by the library system’s insurance provider during the first year, said Jo Spencer, the library system’s deputy executive director of finance.