Geneva Plan Commission likes what it sees in new library plan
The Geneva Plan Commission Thursday approved of the design of the new Geneva Public Library.
The commission recommended the city council approve the plan for the facility, which would be built at 201 S. Sixth St. The council's committee of the whole will consider the request March 26.
Library district voters in April 2017 approved borrowing $21.8 million to build and furnish a new building.
The three-story, 57,000-square-foot facility will be built on a two-acre site bounded by Campbell, Sixth, Franklin and Seventh streets.
That's the site of the former Sixth Street Elementary School. It is in the Geneva Historic District and just outside the boundaries of a national historic district.
It would be about 45 feet tall, 10 feet higher than allowed under law but two feet shorter than the former school. The first floor would be about five feet below grade.
The school stood on the site from 1925 to 2015. The library district bought the building in the early 1980s, then sold it to Kane County. The county's Regional Office of Education was housed there.
The library district bought it back from the county in 2016.
The plan calls for 76 on-site parking spaces. The current library at 127 James St. does not have a parking lot.
The plan includes keeping a playground on the site, but move it to the southeast corner.
The library district wants to open the new building in mid-2019.