EDMONDS – No one will get married on the roof of the Edmonds Library this summer. But the inside of the roof will be much better for it.
The outdoor concrete plaza – with its sweeping view of Puget Sound a popular spot for summertime nuptial events – will be torn up and replaced to solve a years-long leakage problem inside the library below, pending approval of the project by the City Council.
“It’s gone on for so many years,” said city public works director Noel Miller, “that the city aims to get the job done this year.”
The project is buoyed by a contribution of up to $300,000 from the Sno-Isle Library system, thrown in as an enticement for the city to annex into the Sno-Isle district in 2001. Sno-Isle will match the city’s cost for the project up to that amount. While Sno-Isle operates the library, the city built the library building 22 years ago and maintains ownership.
The city’s money for the $553,500 project came from the sale of general obligation bonds in 2001.
City staff are also proposing to spend another $168,000 on repairs and waterproofing of other parts of the library building, including the walls, ceiling, windows and the base of the exterior walls, Gebert said. The need for the waterproofing was discovered when the architect doing the preliminary design for the roof remodel had a subcontractor do an evaluation of the building, he said.
The city’s money for the roof project was already budgeted for this year. The $168,000 for the building work is proposed to come from savings on several other city projects, Gebert said.
The City Council Community Services Committee has given its endorsement to the plan, with full council approval the only step remaining.
The evaluation of the building also discovered problems with the roof above the plaza meeting room and in the area between the Plaza Room and the Frances Anderson Center that forms a cover for the parking lot below. This work will cost another $307,500, but it is not urgent and the city currently doesn’t have the money to do it, Gebert said.
Assuming the project is approved, the start date would be June 24, after the Arts Festival is over, with a finish date of Sept. 30. The parks department, which schedules events for the plaza, was informed last year that the work would likely be done this summer so potential users could plan around it, Gebert said.
“It’s going to be fairly disruptive so we want to get in and get it done and get out,” Gebert said.
The work involves ripping up the concrete plaza and grass planter, the drainage collection system under the slab and the waterproofing membrane, which has become waterlogged, and replacing it all. Because the roof is completely flat, it is actually designed to allow water to seep through the cracks and then be collected by the drainage system, Miller said.
The new waterproofing membrane will be of a newer, better variety than was used 22 years ago, Miller said. It will be a multilayered polyvinyl chloride similar to the lining of a swimming pool, Gebert said.
When rebuilt, the plaza area will look much like it does today, with a slightly different size and configuration for the lawn area, he said.
The city has kept leakage from doing damage in the library by installing a makeshift drainage system above the library ceiling, Miller said.
“When it rains really hard we have leaks,” he said.
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