PORT ANGELES — North Olympic Library System staff hope to have construction on a new maintenance and storage building in Port Angeles under way by Aug. 1 now that the library board has approved a construction contract with a Port-Angeles-based contractor.
The library system’s board of trustees voted unanimously Thursday to approve a $114,654 contract with Port-Angeles-based Hoch Construction Inc. to build a 1,500-square foot maintenance and storage building across Peabody Street from the Port Angeles Library, System Director Paula Barnes said Friday.
Hoch Construction is undertaking a $537,517 effort to renovate the Forks Library, set to wrap up in about nine months.
For the Port Angeles project, Hoch Construction will erect a building on a library-system-owned lot southwest of the intersection of South Peabody Street and South Orcas Avenue that will house a small office for maintenance staff, a small maintenance shop and storage space for shelving and extra supplies.
“Those are the main uses,” Barnes said.
The library system once used an aging private home on the same lot, now demolished, for same purpose, Barnes explained.
The new maintenance and storage building, set to be completed in six to nine months, will offer the library more space than the dilapidated home, which Barnes described as being held up partially by the items stored inside.
In addition to public libraries in Port Angeles and Forks, the North Olympic Library System oversees libraries in Sequim and Clallam Bay.
For more information, see www.nols.org.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
