This Expansion Plan’s One for the Books : Public works: Corona was to pay for more than tripling the city library with $7.4 million in bonds, passed in 1988. But costs had been underestimated.

Expansion of the Corona Public Library will begin in March, two years behind schedule and at double the original estimated cost, but library officials say it will be worth the wait and extra money.

Under the plan, the city’s only library will increase in size from 16,000 square feet to 58,800 square feet. Completion is scheduled for April, 1993.

“It seems like we’ve been working on it for ages,” said Roger Clements, deputy library director.

City officials had hoped to pay for the project with a $7.4-million bond issue, which was passed by more than 70% of the voters in April, 1988. But about a year after the election, planners found that their original consultants had based the price on rough outlines and consequently underestimated costs.

The city has since hired Charles Walton Associates, a Glendale architectural firm, which found that the cost would actually be $15.1 million, Clements said.

“We simply did not obtain the best cost estimate,” said Tom Paradise, chairman of the library’s board of trustees.

Money to make up the difference will come from reserves the city had set aside to renovate the Civic Center, said Ken Fischer, assistant to the city manager. That project still is in the conceptual stage and several years away, he said.

The bond issue failed to cover the full costs of upgrading the existing building for seismic safety, access for the handicapped and installation of fire-suppression systems, Clements said.

The plans call for 7,200 square feet of office space to be built under the library, now the site of a subterranean parking lot. Originally, project planners mistakenly classified the new offices as a renovation project, which carries lower costs than new construction. Now reclassified as a construction project, the cost of the offices has jumped from $600,000 to $972,000, Clements said.

The library project has also been delayed because officials canceled plans to buy neighboring property on Sixth Street for a new parking lot. That land faces the city’s downtown district and is expensive real estate.

Instead, the city bought less expensive land on the southwest corner of the library for the parking lot, Clements said.

“It makes more sense to acquire property that is not prime real estate,” Paradise said.

In addition, all the delays hurt the city because construction costs since 1985 have risen 28%, Clements said.

“The time element--that’s $1.4 million in and of itself,” he said.

The expanded library will include conference, copying, personal computer and typing rooms, as well as an audiovisual section and an area for literacy programs. The look of the building will change with the addition of skylights and a new entrance on the southwest corner.

Library officials said the new facilities will make the wait worth it.

“Every time I come to work, it seems like we have to change the chairs around to get enough seating,” library director Cynthia Dee said. “It hardly allows us to keep up with the people coming in.”

The increased demands on the library were especially evident April 16, when federal and state tax forms were due. More than 1,500 people--one-third more than normal--visited the library, many of them to use the copy machine for their tax forms.

With the expansion, there will be less havoc because crowds will be able to wait in line in the copy room instead of the main section of the library, Clements said.

“We hope to have (the expanded library) very functional,” he said. “That’s the word--a functional library everyone can use.”