As the fate of the village's historic St. Paul's building still hangs in the balance, trustees heard an architect's point of view on the structural feasibility of moving the library into the vacant space.

Trustee Peter Negri brought the idea to light months back and asked the library board if there was any interest on their end to relocate. When library officials agreed to entertain Negri's idea, Todd Harvey from Todd Harvey & Associates, Inc, a registered architect and partner with the company who'd be able to provide the board with some preliminary data entered into conversation.

Harvey, who sat with trustees during a work session Thursday, Jan. 23, concluded that St. Paul's "presents a wonderful opportunity for a library." Sharing his opinion with the library board and the village's board of trustees, Harvey said it makes sense to move the library into St. Paul's for a number of reasons.

"I think a library is one of the most important institutions in any community - a place that almost every age group utilizes, from pre-school all the way to senior citizens," he said. "It's a central public use and St. Paul's reflects that mission."

Putting some of the challenges aside, which revolve mostly around the building's structural makeup - including the wood framing, which would have to be brought up to fire code - Harvey said, "There are some wonderful spaces that lend themselves to types of spaces we'd want in a library. Some of the front rooms that look out over Stewart Avenue are historic rooms with wood paneling. They could make wonderful reading rooms and browsing rooms with magazines and places for comfortable seating. The chapel could be a wonderful reference room, almost like the central room at the New York Library." He also noted that the central staircase is an aspect he'd include in the overall design.

Harvey toured the current library with Negri and Village Administrator Robert Schoelle and came back to the board Dec. 5 - on a no-charge basis - with a budget, a basic sketch of the two floors the library would occupy in St. Paul's as well as a conceptual program.

Todd Harvey & Associates, Inc., the oldest architectural firm in New York, has been around since 1880 and specializes in public libraries. The firm has completed 40 library projects in the last six years and has been working on minor renovations with the Garden City Library for years.

Harvey derived the $16 million figure from a $320 per square foot price; the library would only occupy 50,000 square feet of St. Paul's. "There's going to be a lot of work required to bring a library into that building. The structure has to be beefed up just to support some of the load that a library would bring," Harvey said. Further, an air-conditioning and heating system must be incorporated on top of other upgrade finishes.

In studying the concept, Harvey had to figure out a logistical way to leave the remaining spaces in the building since the library would only take up the front wing, leaving the back two "arms" for other uses. "There's a number of different ways a library can go into that building. This is only one concept," he said. "This is just meant to get a comfort level as to whether it makes sense to go further and for you as trustees to consider this further."

Harvey reiterated that the numbers he presented the board are only based on 50,000 square feet. "It doesn't take into account what work would be needed in the building to accommodate other tenants or to put in other stairwells or other elevators," he said. "I feel these numbers are not unrealistic. Certainly these are numbers that - in this talking stage - are representative of this concept." Harvey suggested that trustees, in order to reach that comfort level, should certainly go a step further.

Trustee Peter Bee told Harvey that there seems to be concern among the trustees that the numbers he presented may spiral, as they did with the village hall concept. "Without exhausting another dead-end, we're trying to get a feel for a margin of error here," Bee said.

"We got a preliminary set of numbers with EYP [Einhorn Yaffee Prescott] and then the numbers spiraled and ultimately reached a level where a fair number of trustees became uncomfortable. Given that we were running into the $30 million plus zone for village hall, I'm sitting here saying, 'Is there any reason why a library would be cheaper, more expensive or about the same? We did a fair level of investigation for the village hall concept and that became a pretty expensive proposition and coming in at half that for a library kind of catches you off guard.'"

While Negri believes "it's a municipal use certainly worthy of consideration," fellow trustee John Mauk said, "I thought this board was no longer going to approach this on a piecemeal basis since a committee [in which Bee, Negri and Mauk are on] was formed. Forgive me but it seems to me that what's going on here tonight in advancing this idea seems counterproductive to that. I don't have a problem if that's the way this board wants to go but I think we should take a vote tonight and see whether that's how we're going to move forward. I don't want to be fighting a rear guard action on this."

Mauk added, "I think we have all the information we need to make a decision on St. Paul's with one exception - I think that we need to get more information now from the public as to what their preferences are. Before we do that, we need to do a better job of informing the public of what's been considered, of what the possible costs are, what some of the alternatives are and what it means to the taxpayers."