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Home My Public Portal AboutAdditional Private Workspace - LibraryCity of Watertown, MA ARPA Project Proposal Submitted by: Caitlin Browne Submitted on: April 11, 2023 Request Number: ARPA-2 Project Name: Additional Private Workspace-Library Proposal Type: City Department Watertown Free Public Library Recommended Project Manager: Caitlin Browne Project Summary: We would like to add a new study room for private workspace in the library. Amount of ARPA Funds Requested: $25,000 Minimum Funds Needed: $18,000 Matching funds available? No Other funds available? Yes State Aid to Libraries (LIG/MEG) 7,000 Guaranteed Project Narrative: I will use the form to enter narrative Narrative description of the project: The library requests $25,000 to create a new private study room. The way people use the library has changed during covid. With more people working from home and without oﬃces to go to every day, we have found more people spending prolonged time in the library. Some people are here all day using their computers, attending zoom meetings, and taking business calls. One recent Sunday afternoon all the workspace on the second ﬂoor was occupied, including private study space. Library study rooms are in high demand--people seek private space to work and study every day. The study rooms are typically booked all day long and we have to turn people away. In fact, we recently started tracking turn-aways and since we started in December 2022, we’ve turned away 386 parties as of April 11, 2023. If approved, we will build an additional study room that would have capacity for two people. The project involves building two walls with a door and a window. A light, electrical outlet, and HVAC will be installed. One table with two chairs, a whiteboard, and large monitor will be installed post-build. Detailed Project Budget: The estimated cost of this project is $25,000. This ﬁgure includes furniture and peripherals. Construction: $17,000 Electrical: $2,500 HVAC: $3,000 Furniture: $2,500 If any overages occur special library funds can be used. If the project came in under the estimate, we would use any remaining funds to purchase single stall pods. Timeline for the project: The limiting factor for this project will be how quickly we can get bids. Once we have a contractor the turn-around should be relatively quick once the construction begins. Fall 2023 1. Go to bid 2. Bid winner notiﬁed Winter 2023-24 1. Contractor order supplies and schedule work Spring 2024 1. Build study room 2. Payment complete Resources required in addition to the ARPA funding: The ﬁnal step to this project will be adding the new study room to our online booking calendar. This can be paid from special library funds or State Aid to Libraries. It is estimated to cost $1200. Metrics for success of the project: In 2022, 25,6942 people used the library. During that time private study rooms were booked 4,440 times. It is estimated that a new study room will result in an additional 1460 bookings per year. This will allow us to reduce the number of people we have to turn away from private study space. Outputs / outcomes: The outcome of this project is a new private study room and more people served who would like to use private study space. What will be the overall beneﬁt? People who use the library are looking for private space to do work. This project will allow more people to have their needs met and decrease the number of people who get turned away from this service.