Library construction prep work about to begin

CEDAR RAPIDS - The city will take possession Monday of the former TrueNorth Companies site across from Greene Square Park, where the new downtown library will be built to replace one ruined three and half years ago in the Floods of 2008.

Sections of fence will go up yet this week around the site, which TrueNorth left before Thanksgiving in a move to its new home - the renovated building on First Street SE that used to house the library.

The $49 million new library is set to open in June 2013.

“I think we're ready to get going,” Bob Pasicznyuk, the library's director, said Tuesday. “I think we're going to have a library that people will treasure for generations.”

Demolition on the former TrueNorth building won't occur immediately so crews have time to remove items for reuse by entities like Habitat for Humanity's Restore store. Those items include doors, electrical fixtures, cabinetry, wood paneling and toilets. Actual demolition of the building will take place just after the first of the year, with the building's brick and concrete being ground up on site and used there for fill and base building material. Windows and steel will be recycled.

The target is to keep 90 percent of what is now on the site out of the landfill, Clayton Cubbage, the project manager for Ryan Cos. US Inc. in Cedar Rapids, said Monday. Such re-purposing and recycling earns the project points toward its goal of achieving the top platinum status in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating system.

Cubbage said crews will raise the site two and a half feet to get it out of flood danger before actual construction begins. He said the new library's foundation will be put in place this winter.

Federal disaster dollars, a state I-JOBS grant and private donations are paying most of the cost of the new library with the help of $4 million in revenue from the city's local-option sales tax.