Group 3 – Lower Level

What the Place Game Team Liked Best

The Place Game participants liked the central location in the heart of downtown and the outdoor space on the east side. They saw potential for the lower level to connect to outdoors and for use as public and commercial space. The found the interior clean and liked the presence of trees.

What Could Be Improved

The group saw the space as disconnected, dead, uninviting and poorly utilized.

They disliked the lack of access to the outside and thought that the exterior space was dark, dirty, and not well maintained with an institutional and uninviting feel.

Short Term

• Project art and artistic lighting on the sides of the building
• Remove weeds and landscape the area.
• Add coordinated furniture.
• Install in-ground lighting and better signage
• Replace rock in stairwell with greenery.
• Add murals and repaint.
• Raise or remove the blinds to admit natural light.
• Install bigger and higher signage.
• Place seating in entry area.
• Put in benches and picnic tables.
• Add kitchenettes to meeting spaces.

Long Term

• Close 14 th Street and connect the library directly to the Mall
• Create an alternate front door with a glass pier structure and reroute stairs around enclosure.
• Remove concrete to get rid of Soviet architecture look.
• Replace lighting system with high-tech computer generated images on the sides of the building.
• Create a main entrance exclusively for kids.
• Bring in more Shops and kiosks on the lower level and main floor.
• Remove lower level ceiling to connect to atrium.
• Recreate vision of library as central focus of downtown.
• Build a dome over the lower level parking and add a pond and benches.
• Replace fixed walls with movable walls.
• Move offices to the sides, leaving central space open and inviting.

[ Comments and Suggestions ]