Trustees endorse task force's 'guiding principles' for library, museum expansions

10:00 PM PDT on Monday, June 23, 2008

By DOUG HABERMAN
The Press-Enterprise

RIVERSIDE - The Board of Library Trustees on Monday endorsed the tentative "guiding principles" of the Library/Museum Task Force for expansions of the Main Library and Metropolitan Museum.

The task force took public comments last week and meets at 3 p.m. Wednesday to write its final recommendations.

Its main recommendation is for separate expansions of the library and museum instead of a facility that would combine a library expansion with space for the museum to host high quality traveling exhibits, which the city had been proposing.

Another key task force recommendation is for the library board to recommend how much expansion space is needed for the Main Library, and for the museum board to do the same for the museum.

The library board Monday endorsed "the spirit" of the recommendations of the Raincross Group, a 35-member civic advocacy organization that proposed a doubling of the Main Library to about 120,000 square feet and construction of a 30,000-square-foot addition to the museum in the parking lot behind the museum.

The Raincross Group also recommended construction of a parking garage on Mission Inn Avenue between Lemon and Lime streets to serve the library and museum.

The library board in January had approved doubling the size of the Main Library to give it about 124,000 gross square feet of space.

The Raincross proposal calls for slightly less space than that, so the library board vote Monday amended its January vote.

The museum board is scheduled to discuss the task force recommendations at its July 8 meeting.

The task force recommendations are expected to go before the City Council on Aug. 12.