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July 12, 2010

Complex? Sure is, Moorestown finds

http://www.philly.com
By Kevin Riordan
July 11, 2010
Inquirer Columnist

Cost concerns and a contractor's woes scuttled plans four years ago to replace the architecturally adventurous but functionally obsolete Moorestown Library.

When a fire damaged the similarly inefficient Town Hall in 2007, Moorestown opted to redevelop the entire municipal complex at Second and Church Streets.

Three years have passed, and this comfortable community of savvy citizens and capable officials still hasn't figured out what to do with its library, municipal offices, and Police Department.

The township has so far spent about $1.54 million (some of it on relocation costs and new equipment), township operations remain dispersed in various buildings, and plans have been sent back to the drawing board.

"We haven't gotten it right yet," Mayor Daniel Roccato says. "But we will get it right. This is a complicated project."

It certainly is. Moorestown hopes its new municipal complex will not only be more efficient but also bolster downtown. And the protracted effort to start the work is unfolding in a contentious climate of fiscal austerity and public distrust.

"There's a lot of fiction out there about things being done behind closed doors," Township Manager Christopher J. Schultz says. "Let's correct the record. This was done publicly. This town is as transparent as any."

In June, after all 10 bids to build the project exceeded the $11.7 million construction budget, the Township Council directed consultants to revise the plans.

"We're simplifying and downsizing the space. We're making progress," says Stephen Schoch, managing principal of Kitchen & Associates in Collingswood, the project's architect.

Adds Schultz: "This is not just building a building. It's much more than a renovation and new construction project. It's a major redevelopment."

Designed by the visionary and idiosyncratic architect Malcolm Wells, a Camden native who died in November, the existing municipal complex opened in 1975.

It consists of two imposing, vaguely barnlike structures coated in creamy, now-discolored stucco, which parallel each other across a parking lot. A row of pergolas serves to connect them.

"What's 'Moorestown' about it? I don't know," Schultz says.

I don't know, either. Even before the fire, the complex - with its windowless walls and tedious tundra of parking - was a rather chilly and cheerless public space.

But let's acknowledge that Wells, whose other South Jersey landmarks include the semi-subterranean Camden County Library branch in Voorhees, championed "green" long before it was hip. He sought not only to connect his buildings with the earth but also to embed them in it.

"They're like bunkers," observes Moorestown Library director Joseph Galbraith. He admired Wells, with whom he corresponded, but calls the building "a nightmare" to operate and maintain.

"The ceilings and floors are 18 inches of concrete, with double rebar," Galbraith says. "You can't open the windows. There's very little natural light. And it leaks."

The plan now under revision would house the library, Police Department, and Municipal Court within a gutted and renovated Town Hall. Most municipal offices would be in a new, two-story structure on the site, with the future use of the library building to be determined.

"Why has it been so difficult? It's not that anyone has failed miserably," Schoch says.

"The township wants something they can be proud of, that meets their needs - including the distinct functions within the Township Hall building - and does so within a tight budget. Getting all these things to line up is no easy task."

I hear that.

But I also hear people like Leslie Klemm, a 40-year-old mother of three who just wants her town to "move forward" with the project.

Dan Craft, a 48-year-old engineer, father of two, and frequent patron of the library, is frustrated, too.

"If we're going to do something," he says, "let's do it."

Amen.

Posted by tumulty at July 12, 2010 9:51 AM

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