EXPANSION PLANNING

We are the subrecipient (thank you, Town of Plainfield!) of a $28,000 grant from the Vermont Community Development Program, to plan an expansion/addition of the existing library to become 100% compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements of public buildings.

The expansion will serve everyone in the community since it will mean more space for people and programming at the library. At this stage, we anticipate doubling the usable square footage inside the library and doubling the amount of available parking.

After conducting an Historic Building Assessment, an Accessibility Assessment a few year ago, we applied for and was awarded the VCDP grant. We held an internal and then a public brainstorming session to explore what we believe are the important features we'll request in the designing of the addition. We are now beginning to work with an archaeological consultant to check whether or not our site has potential archaeological significance that we would be disturbing, which is a grant requirement before moving forward with the actual building design.

As of now (mid- to late-June) we're in the process of soliciting bids from architects. Below, please find the bid request letter and follow-up questions and answers from our planning grant consultant at Arc & Arrow Consulting.

We are convening a committee of community members, representing the various stakeholders, to review the proposals and make a recommendation to the board of trustees regarding which firm or individual seems the best fit for our circumstances and community. If you are interested in serving on the committee, we plan to meet on Sunday the 8th or Monday the 9th of July at the library. Please RSVP so we can be sure to recruit people with different interests and needs to balance the group's perspective. Email us at info@cutlerlibrary.org.

Please note that the supporting files can be accessed here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s-FvqUdVqSvwn2oRl6MAn0_Rv5QuVVxJ?usp=sharing