Lavonia to Make Repairs, Improvements to Carnegie Library Interior

Lavonia Carnegie Library2The Lavonia Carnegie Library will soon be getting a much-needed facelift inside.

Over the past year, the City has successfully completed repairs and renovations to the library’s exterior.

At a work session this week, the Lavonia City Council discussed some of the work that needs to be done on the historic library’s interior along with the cost.

Assistant City Manager Charles Cawthon ran down the list of work that is planned, which includes new flooring, paint, awnings, handrails and lighting.

Cawthon said part of the work will be done in conjunction with the Athens Library System, but he said Lavonia almost lost out on the matching funds offered by the System.

Our present City Manager really pulled this off. Come to find out everything had to be submitted and invoiced by September 1 in order to get this money,” Cawthon said. “So he got a game plan together and contacted them and asked them if they would hold the door open for us if got quotes and they graciously allowed us to do that.”

Cawthon said the plan is to put in laminate flooring and vinyl flooring in the rest rooms.

The quotes came in so good so we have decided instead of just doing the high-traffic areas to do the whole thing, because the library will have to be shut down while the work is being done,” he said.

City will also install new awnings at the front and back door and replace the back door, which has been damaged over the years by rainwater.

Discussion also centered around the lighting in the Library.

City manager Gary Fesperman noted the current lighting is old and outdated.

We have the old T-12 lighting in there. That’s the big flourescent bulbs which are obsolete now,” Fesperman told the Council. “We need to changing the fixtures. You can’t convert the fixtures in there because they’re old style. So we’re going to have to some type of new fixtures that are LED, which will provide more lighting and be more cost effective as well.”

Under the plan, the City will spend about $25,000 total for all of the work.

The Library system will contribute half of that and Cawthon noted there is still about $6,500 left in the current SPLOST funds for library repair work.

The City Council plans to vote on the repair work next Tuesday at their regular meeting.