AMY SZPARA

PHOTO: Construction is on schedule at the site of the new parish library in LaPlace. (Staff Photo by Amy Szpara) LAPLACE – The construction of the new St. John the Baptist Parish library on U.S. Highway 51 is progressing according to schedule, and except for a few rain outs, the crew has run into very few problems since it began working in February. Scheduled to open approximately one year from the groundbreaking, the new library will be 20,000 square feet and the parish administration has plans to construct a park next to the building. Porches will be added to the building for rocking chairs that will face the park. On Tuesday morning, a 15-man crew was working at the site bright and early after being rained out the day before. Billy Spiers, project superintendent, said his crew will have to be ready for February and he sees no reason why they will not be. “I’ll have to have it ready by then. I’ll have it ready to open in January. My part has to be ready by then,” said Spiers. According to Spiers, the only problems have been minor, what he called normal construction site problems. “Our biggest delay has been rain outs. (Tropical Storm) Allison came in and shut us down for a week,” he said. The crew has been working 10-hour days, arriving at work at 7 a.m. Spiers drives in from Picayune, Miss. daily, putting in 106 miles both ways. Spiers said the subcontractors would be arriving in the next couple of weeks. Watson Mechanical, L.T.H. Mechanical and Murray Legros will be contracted. “Once we get the building up, all the subs (subcontractors) will start coming in. In the next two weeks, it will start looking like a building,” he said. Randy DeSoto, administrative librarian at the St. John Library on Airline Highway, is excited about the progress being made on Highway 51. “We’re getting a lot of comments from people. It looks like it’s going to be a nice building,” he said. “We’re excited. We’re doing everything we need to do right now to plan for the move.” DeSoto estimated it will take a month for his staff to move everything from the old library to the new one. He said the new library will probably be fully functional by March. “We’re excited about being in the new space. We’re watching the roof go up right now,” he said. Billy Sizeler and Ian Thompson of Sizeler Architects designed the new building, and it will be in a local vernacular style with covered porches and sloped roofs. The walkways will be raised to suit Louisiana weather. The original library on Airline Highway was built in 1977 and was expanded in 1984 to double its size. Since 1984, new libraries have gone up in Edgard and Reserve. The new library is part of Libraries 2000, a program started by Joseph Scontrino of the Library Board of Control to update the parish’s libraries.