ROCKVILLE — The design for Silver Spring’s new library isn’t carved in granite, but a line’s definitely been drawn in the sand.
During a human-services committee meeting Thursday morning, county council members learned that MoCo exec Ike Leggett’s ideas for the Fenton Village library site doesn’t groove with what residents chose at a series of public meetings.
Issue no. 1: parking, and whether it should be built on site. In Leggett’s scenario (below), the new library would sit on the south side of Wayne Avenue near Fenton Street (blue). Instead of offering on-site parking, a pedestrian bridge would connect the library with the public garage across the street, David Dise, with the general-services department, explained to the committee.
Leggett's reading room
“We envision a bridge that’s open and visible from street level, with excellent lighting,” Dise said. The bridge would likely link to the garage’s third level, where parking could be reserved for bookworms only, he added.
Participants of this fall’s public meetings pulled for something different: a library on Bonifant Street near Fenton (below), with underground parking that currently isn’t figured into the design. Ironically, an adjacent residential building (yellow) could have around 140 parking spots beneath it. That left council member Valerie Ervin (D-District 5) wondering why the same couldn’t be done for the library.
The people's choice (at least some people)
It has to do with money, Dise spelled out. His department was reluctant to foot the extra millions to dig deep beneath the library building, which would be built in advance of the apartments. On the other hand, a residential developer (who hasn’t been found yet) would be eager to build underground parking for renters or condo buyers, Dise said.
Even if the residential developer were to add parking spots for library patrons, those spots could be eons in the making, given the real-estate market these days, Dise threw in.
Council member Ervin wasn’t digging the idea. Some residents would continue to drive, either by necessity or choice, and on-site parking was a deal breaker. Business owners on Bonifant Street also worried that library patrons would suck up all the curbside parking, leaving nothing left for their customers, she said.
“There’s a growing unease that the community is not being listened to,” Ervin told the committee. “We still have to accomodate people who work and live in Silver Spring” beyond its urban core, she said.
Issue no. 2: the building’s size and orientation. Leggett’s library on Wayne would put the residential building and street-level retail on Bonifant and Fenton. Public-meeting participants want to see the apartment building on Wayne, next to The Crescent condominiums, but that would require a change in current height restrictions.
Currently, building heights are capped on that stretch of Wayne at 110 feet. A new residential building there would need 143 feet of head room (the same as The Crescent) to make the economics work, general services’ Dise said.
Ervin also worried that a library and its foot traffic would never make it to the shops on Bonifant if the library was on Wayne. On the other hand, a library entrance on Bonifant would encourage the “village” feel that Fenton Village longs for, she said.
Gary Stith, director for Silver Spring’s regional center, wasn’t sweating it. Even with the library on Wayne, an entrance on Fenton Street would still get people moving to Mandalay or Roger Miller for some post-reading nosh, he suggested.
Issue no. 3: the cost. Leggett’s design of preference rings up at $58 million, council member George Leventhal (D-At large) said. By comparison, the people’s choice costs $78 million, including the cost of digging that on-site parking.
With the county exec at odds with area residents, what’s a county council to do? Hold another public meeting, Leventhal said. Expect one to hit before Dec 4, when county council members get a second swing at the job.
Updated Nov 21, 2008, to correct the cost of parking at the library.
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They should have done this years ago when everyone wasn’t poor. As usual, they took forever arguing about it and holding charettes. Now where is the $78 million going to come from?
Since I will no doubt be unemployed sooner or later, I would have liked to have our new library available to kill time in during the day.
These designs make me a little nauseous. Why can’t we have a simple elegant practical design? What’s with all the wild angles and empty spaces?
MM – I couldn’t agree with you more. I went to the charettes and asked the architects the same thing, they said the models are not “designs” but just massing models. That’s ludicrous. How the form of a building is not part of the design escapes me. Essentially architects say that to deflect criticism, then they layer some ulta chic glass and steel skin on the “massing” and Voila, you’ve got your Library. Just what the community asked for.
NOT.
I received an email this afternoon from my man Ben Stutz, legislative aide and policy analyst to council member Valerie Ervin:
Thanks, Ben! I’ll correct the story.
What is it with “parking”? Certainly most patrons COULD walk, bike, take the bus, or take the cool Purple Line which will stop at the front door once we get over out phobias. For those who can’t conceive of these options.- let them park in the garage we have already built at great public expense. “Where will I park” is so last century.
Amen to that, Buzz. There already IS parking. I don’t understand some people’s fierce arguments for additional (WILDLY expensive) underground parking there.
And I actually like Leggett’s preference better, and agree with Stith that as long as an (the?) entrance is on Fenton, it will help pull people further from DTSS and boost the Fenton corridor more.
MM said (and Thayer D agreed): These designs make me a little nauseous. Why can’t we have a simple elegant practical design? What’s with all the wild angles and empty spaces?
What “wild angles” and “empty” spaces are you talking about? What about the massing models makes them unelegant and impractical? The library site has exceptional spacial constraints: horizontal to accomodate the purple line and vertical to accomodate the height limiations. We are left with a space that doesn’t fit into a neat rectangle or square block. The developable space at the corner of Wayne & Fenton is an acute angle and there is no working around it. The architects have done what any good designer does–make lemonade out of lemons.
Would you lob the same criticm of the I.M. Pei’s design for the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art? He responded to a similar acute ange with astonishing effect.
And what are “empty spaces”? Surely the architects explained that those would be animated landscaped pedestrian plaza type areas filled with benches,shade trees, lighting and perhaps sculpture and/or a fountain. Would you call the great piazzas of Europe empty spaces? Or even the “Silver Plaza” area on Ellsworth? Criticize the stucco blandness and new construction there all you want, but this “empty space” is wildly successful and popular.
And finally, what exactly is wrong with a “chic glass and steel skin”? That’s exactly what’s on the Discovery Building. Are you saying that the only type of architecture that you consider appealing is traditional?
The criticism of the architect’s massing studies/models (and that’s all they are) seems to come from an inability to visualize how a detailed finished product might look. I’m sure I’ll get lots of “feedback” on my opinion, but it sure seems the truth based on how the prior posts were phrased.
Editor’s note: Play nice, people. — JD (Nov 23, 2008)
Woodsider,
It’s only an opinion on asthecits, some people prefer glass and steel and some people prefere masonry, wood, glass, and steel. This has nothing to do with style and everything to do with how materials age in nature. Since this building will presumably be there for a while, but architectural fashions will come and go, why not build for the ages? I would go so far as to call that the truely “green” approach. And, nothing against the master I.M. Pei, but god forbid we should get an asutere blank wall whether stone or not, to help deaden what should be a jewel on our streets.
Vive la differance!!!
Thayer-D: Agreed re differences of opinion–that’s what makes the world go ’round. My prior post responded to specific criticisms: I referenced IM Pei’s building not because of the “asutere blank wall”, but becasue of the acute angle of the building. It was the “wild angles” that MM said made him nauseous. And your follow-up post criticized the architects for saying the masssing wasn’t a final design, but you assumed they’d throw a glass & steel skin on it. They didn’t say that did they? For all you know, it might have traditional architectural detailing like NYC’s beloved Flatiron Building–an acute angle if there ever was one. My point is that we shouldn’t be too quick to judge any design from conceptual massing studies.
To all of the above, please note that the plans above really are just representations of square footage. RKTL, who worked through the charette process is not the architecture firm that will design the library space. The real issue (which is not clear from these pictures) is whether you want a 12+ story building on Bonifant (as large as the Crescent building) with the 5 story library on Wayne. Or if it’s in the community’s interest to have them swapped (with the large building on Wayne and the smaller on Bonifant). Also, the plan with the library on Bonifant allows for growth in the future. The orange space is county office space that could be co-opted by the library if (when) there is a need for expansion. Design issues will come in the coming months. What’s important now is working out the details for how the land will be used.