BATON ROUGE - Believe it or not, there is still work to do at the River Center Branch Library downtown Baton Rouge. Before the coronavirus stay-at-home order the library was scheduled to open this week, but the date has been pushed back a little further.

Inside the library, books and DVD's are organized on shelves, new seating areas are set up on the front patio, and signage on the building says it will be opening this spring. Now that spring opening date is unknown because of the virus and late deliveries.

"Some deliveries have not taken place as you see all over, not only the city, the state, the region, the nation," said Asst. Library Director Mary Stein. "Furniture hasn't come in, glass boards haven't come in."

While the library is waiting on those deliveries, there's an important update at Wednesday's virtual Metrocouncil meeting. Up for approval is the last change order to the library valued at $410,440.02. 

That remediation and repair work covered recoating the vapor barrier and expired adhesive costs, fourth-floor balcony roof repairs, additional main roof repairs, and window wall repairs.

The City-Parish says it executed the planned structural remediation with these change orders as soon as possible to mitigate costly delays with the continuance of construction and project completion. The City-Parish is moving forward to recover and all funds from the responsible parties and a legal suit is still pending.

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

While all the major items are now complete, Stein says crews are working through the punch list.

"Places that need repainting, touch-ups, places where maybe something got bumped, places where the molding is not quite level," said Stein.

The $14.5 million project ended up costing about $18 million.

The library is still scheduled to open this spring, but a date has not been announced.