Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/344348
With the new two-story Gulf Gate Library scheduled to open in late January 2015, the Sarasota County Commission this week approved the purchases of furniture, fixtures and equipment for it in an amount not to exceed $600,000. The item was among those approved on the board's July 8 consent agenda with no comment. During the commissioners' June 25 bud- get workshop, Sarabeth Kalajian, director of libraries and historical resources for the county, said the library construction was 70-percent complete at that point and on schedule. She reminded the board that the original Gulf Gate Library, which opened in November 1973, comprised 1,500 square feet. The new facility, located on the 7211 Curtiss Ave. site of its immediate predecessor, will have 25,920 square feet, Kalajian added. A July 8 memo provided to the commis- sioners explains that furniture, fixtures and equipment purchases and installation typ- ically are handled through State of Florida contracts outside construction contracts. An aerial view of the construction of Gulf Gate Library, provided to the county by Willis Smith Construction in late June, shows the parking parcel across the street that the Friends of Gulf Gate Library gave Sarasota County in December. Photo courtesy Sarasota County A LIBRARY, A TROLLEY, PARKING AND PAVING THE COUNTY COMMISSION APPROVES A RANGE OF JULY 8 CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS, RANGING FROM FURNITURE FOR THE NEW GULF GATE LIBRARY TO A CONTRACT FOR SOUTH COUNTY ROAD RESURFACING By Rachel Brown Hackney Editor