Mike Wolanin | The Republic A view of the main staircase and elevator as work on replacing tile flooring continues at the Bartholomew County Public Library in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, March 28, 2023.
It will likely be several months before the Bartholomew County Public Library’s main Columbus branch will have a new elevator installed and operational.
The current elevator has been out of service since 6 a.m. on March 24. After troubleshooting and getting inspections, library staff came to the conclusion that it cannot be fixed and needs to be entirely replaced.
Library director Jason Hatton said the library has received an estimated $140,000 quote from the company that currently services the elevator and is working to get estimates from others as well.
While he’s still figuring out what to do next, Hatton said he would like to have the board of trustees take some form of action on the project at the next board meeting, which is set for April 10. Depending on what the library hears from contractors, he may ask the board to declare an emergency in order to bypass certain restrictions and expedite the bidding process.
“The lead time is pretty significant,” said Hatton. “The elevator tech told us the absolute, absolute earliest would be six weeks. The one quote we have actually says about six months, so we’re trying to get confirmation from the company we have a quote from.”
While he doesn’t know how long the project will take, he said that the elevator will “be down for several months.”
There was a specific part of the device that failed, and the library’s elevator technician has been unable to find a replacement. Without this part, the elevator is effectively “dead,” said Hatton. He added that even if they were able to find the part and get the elevator operational, they would still work to get a new elevator installed due to the likelihood of the old one failing again.
The elevator is original to the building, which opened in 1969, according to library records.
Hatton said that he received a quote on the elevator last year.
“I knew, at some point in time, it was going to fail, and so I kind of wanted to be prepared for what that cost was going to look like,” he said. “We didn’t do it then because of the upcoming flooring project. Because we’re spending so much money on that, I was really hoping to replace the elevator in 2024.”
The library has cash available in its savings to cover the cost of the project. However, Hatton noted that between the elevator replacement and the flooring project, the library may exceed its planned budget for 2023 and need to get the Bartholomew County Council’s approval for an additional appropriation. This is one of the reasons he had hoped to defer the elevator work.
“But again, that’s our money still,” he added.
At present, library officials expect to move forward with the flooring project as planned, though Hatton acknowledged that the lack of a usable elevator will be an added inconvenience.
He noted that there was more strain on the elevator in recent times due to the flooring project, but its age was likely a factor as well.
The elevator failure restricts the library’s ability to offer ADA-complaint access to the building’s lower level and mezzanine. As a result, all meeting rooms, including the Red Room and Conference Room, “will be closed entirely.”
“Community members that have existing reservations will be notified of this cancellation, and all future requests will be denied until we have a new elevator up and running,” library officials said. “We are currently reaching out to our community partners in an effort to generate a list of alternative locations for meetings and community gatherings that rely on our spaces.”
Staff are also rearranging sections of the building’s main level to accommodate most of the library’s internal programming, and some events will be shifted to a “community partner location” nearby. The former Indiana Room, now known as the Main Level Meeting Room, will be a central location for many library programs, and staff are also looking into options for creating sheltered, accessible spaces on the outdoor plaza.
The main staircase will remain open from the main floor to the lower level until flooring work begins in that area in mid-April. At that time, patrons will need to use outdoor entrances to access the building’s different levels.
The library is also working to have accessible porta-johns placed outside the building for restroom access.
