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Crews making progress on downtown library repairs

4 years 11 months 3 days ago Thursday, April 25 2019 Apr 25, 2019 April 25, 2019 9:42 PM April 25, 2019 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - Progress is finally being made one year after construction was halted at the downtown library. The structure is level again, and the hydraulic jacks will soon come down.

“Everyone involved in the project is happy to be back at work,” said EBR Library Director Spencer Watts.

At their Thursday meeting, Watts updated the library board on where construction was on the project.

“It had entered into the remediation phase,” said Watts. “The building and all of the beams are level.”

Crews began working again at the beginning of the month. The library board fronted $2.7 million to do so, expecting to get the money back through court.

In April 2018, a critical support beam snapped, stalling construction. The city-parish has sued the architecture firm, contractor, and construction firm.

With work in progress again, Watts says the four red hydraulic jacks that were put in to support the building should be gone in 6 to 8 weeks.

Many who live downtown are ready to see them go.

“They’re eyesores. It looks like something from a junkyard. They started with a good idea, and that's not where they ended up,” said Wade Henderson.

“It looks like it's a work in progress, which is nice that there's work in progress. But I'd like the progress to sort of be finished,” added Adam Wilson.

Watts says the library should be complete in late October, early November of this year.

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