Leland Township Public Library is working to wrap up the last of the construction on its new children’s room addition in the next week or so following a busy summer of renovations. Other updates to the building’s exterior areas are anticipated to be completed by October 6 when the library reopens again.
Mark Morton, Leland Township Public Library Director, said once the doors and carpet are installed in the children’s room, it’s just a matter of moving shelving and rearranging the main library into its final layout.
“Then it’s just a matter of coordinating when we can get all the stuff moved in there. We have so many children coming to the library and we want to make sure that we have a children’s area whether it’s the old one or the new one, so the scheduling on that will be kind of close,” Morton said.
The renovation project, which began Feb. 3, is intended to transform the library’s payout to better serve the community’s evolving needs while addressing aging infrastructure. The expanded children’s room, a new teen area, and multiple study and meeting rooms are all designed to enhance accessibility throughout the building.
The library will be closed from Monday, Sept. 22 through Sunday, Oct. 5 as work will shift to replacing the sidewalks leading to the library, the Leelanau Historical Society Museum, and the Fishtown Preservation Society offices. During this time, work in the Munnecke Room, as well as the repaving of the parking area next to the children’s room addition which will include two accessible parking spaces closer to the library’s entrance, will be completed.
“As far as the construction goes, that will pretty much be it. We still have to do landscaping and the irrigation system needs to be upgraded and things like that, but the major portion of construction will be done by October 6,” he said. “Everything has been going so smoothly, we’ve been on budget and on time and the schedule has been going really well, so we’re really pleased with how it’s been going. Also, the reaction we’re getting from our patrons of what we’ve done so far — everybody’s really happy with it.”
In August, Morton shared with the public via the library’s Facebook page the news of illegal dumping occurring on-site. Morton said while they had previously overlooked the bags of household trash thrown in since they had the dumpster, intended for construction debris, in place, it had “officially gotten out of hand” when a refrigerator and dishwasher was found inside.
“The refrigerator was just over the top, it was really frustrating,” he said.
Since the incident, the library has had to pay to install a temporary fence around the dumpster as well as a solar powered security camera in hopes of deterring others and preventing further incidents from happening again.
